Panera Hit with Illinois Privacy Lawsuit Over Employee Fingerprint Scans

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A proposed class action claims Panera, LLC has unlawfully collected and stored employees’ fingerprint data for timekeeping purposes without fulfilling specific disclosure requirements mandated by an Illinois privacy law.

Alleging violations of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), the lawsuit out of Cook County Circuit Court alleges Panera has exposed restaurant employees to “serious and irreversible privacy risks” by collecting their biometric information—fingerprints—without complying with state law.

“If Defendant’s database of digitized fingerprints were to fall into the wrong hands, by data breach or otherwise, the employees to whom these sensitive and immutable biometric identifiers belong could have their identities stolen, among other serious issues,” the complaint scathes. “BIPA confers on Plaintiff and all other similarly situated Illinois residents a right to know of such risks, which are inherently presented by the collection and storage of biometrics, and a right to know how long such risks will persist after termination of their employment.”

The plaintiff says he worked for Panera at one of its Au Bon Pain restaurants in Illinois between February 2002 and October 2019. According to the case, the restaurant began to require that employees scan their fingerprints to clock into and out of Panera’s timekeeping system in 2014.

Per the suit, the plaintiff was neither provided nor signed a written release allowing Panera to collect and store his biometric information as required by the BIPA, or given statutory disclosures informing him of the intended use of his private data.

Moreover, Panera failed to provide a publicly available retention schedule or guidelines outlining when the plaintiff’s biometric data would be permanently destroyed, the lawsuit relays, stressing as a result, the individual “has no reason to believe” his data was destroyed after he stopped working for Panera.

Finally, the case surmises the plaintiff’s data was likely disseminated without his knowledge or consent if Panera used an outside vendor to process payroll.

The lawsuit looks to cover anyone who had their fingerprints collected, captured, received or otherwise obtained and stored by Panera in Illinois.

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