Oberweis Dairy Hit with Privacy Class Action Over Employee Fingerprint Scans

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Oberweis Dairy, Inc. faces a proposed class action that claims the company has required employees to scan their fingerprints for timekeeping purposes without first providing proper disclosures or securing their consent to do so.

Per the lawsuit out of Cook County, Illinois Circuit Court, Oberweis Dairy, owned by former state Senator Jim Oberweis, has overstepped the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, a law that prohibits private entities from collecting residents’ biometric information, e.g., fingerprints, without first providing certain data collection and retention disclosures and obtaining consent.

The lawsuit says that while there is “no question” that the defendant has achieved a labor management benefit through its implementation of a biometric time clock, in particular in that workers are prevented from clocking in for each other, there is “equally no question that Defendant placed employees at risk by using their biometric identifiers to ‘punch the clock.’” Per the lawsuit, Oberweis Dairy’s collection and use of workers’ biometric information has exposed them to serious privacy risks given fingerprints, unlike ID cards, can never be changed once compromised.

The plaintiff, who worked for Oberweis Dairy in North Aurora between May 2020 and March 2021, says she scanned her fingerprint in the defendant’s biometric time clock each time she clocked in and out from work. The suit claims, however, that Oberweis Dairy never provided the plaintiff with any written materials informing her that her biometric information would be collected, retained or disclosed, and did not obtain her written consent authorizing such, as required under the BIPA.

Oberweis, the lawsuit says, violated the plaintiff’s and other workers’ privacy by collecting their unique biometric identifiers and sharing the data with the company’s timekeeping vendor.

The plaintiff looks to represent anyone who worked for Oberweis Dairy and scanned their fingerprints in its biometric time clock system in Illinois at any time since May 2016 without first executing a written release.

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