On August 12, 2022, the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois preliminarily approved a $3.5 million class action settlement to resolve claims arising under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) brought against logistics provider NFI Industries, Inc. According to the Plaintiff’s motion and in support of the preliminary approval, the cash settlement will be used to compensate almost 3,900 NFI employees who worked for the company between December 2014 and November 2018.
The complaint was initially filed in Illinois state court in December 2019, before NFI had the case moved to the US District Court for Northern Illinois in January 2020. The plaintiffs alleged that NFI collected fingerprints from its employees and staff to monitor their arrivals and departures from the workplace violating BIPA by 1) failing to inform staff in writing before collecting, capturing and storing their fingerprints; 2) failing to obtain a written release prior to capturing biometric data; 3) failing to provide in writing the specific purpose and length of time the biometric data would be stored, and 4) failing to establish and maintain a publicly available retention schedule and guidelines for permanently destroying the data.
Under the terms of settlement, each class member should receive approximately $570 following the payment of service awards, attorneys’ fees and administrative expenses. In addition, an NFI representative will certify that the company has complied with the BIPA since 2018. According to the Settlement Agreement, NFI denies all allegations of wrongdoing or liability alleged in the complaint.
Plaintiff’s Unopposed Motion and Memo in Support of Preliminary Approval of Class Action Settlement |Settlement Agreement and Release | Docket Entry granting preliminary approval | Class Action Complaint