Biometrics privacy law’s territorial reach limited, appeals court says – Illinois
Biometrics privacy law’s territorial reach limited, appeals court says – Illinois
Publish Date: 2026-05-24 00:38:00
Source Domain: blackchronicle.com
Amazon has turned aside another attempt to use Illinois’ stringent biometrics privacy law to extract a potentially big payout from the company, after a federal appeals court again shut down a class action lawsuit over claims Illinois’ residents voices were allegedly wrongly recorded when financial services firm John Hancock used Amazon Web Services and another company to verify customers’ identities over the phone.
In the ruling, the appeals court judges said they were joining with other courts in limiting the reach of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), determining the BIPA law can’t be used to sue companies anytime an Illinois resident or someone located in Illinois engages in e-commerce anywhere.
On May 12, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia agreed a federal district judge in Delaware had been correct to dismiss the lawsuit.
The case had landed at the Third Circuit following a long and winding procedural history.
The case was first filed in 2019 in Madison County Circuit Court by attorneys with the firm of Schlichter Bogard & Denton, of St. Louis.
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The case sought a potentially big payout from Amazon Web Services, the cloud infrastructure hosting arm of the Amazon family of companies. AWS offers companies web-hosting and computing power space to companies that lack the ability to invest in their own digital infrastructure.
According to some published estimates, AWS accounts for as much as 40% of the cloud infrastructure market and hosts 6% of all global websites, including some of the world’s busiest platforms.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of named plaintiffs, identified as Christine McGoveran, of Wood River in Madison County; Joseph Valentine, of Antioch, in Lake County; and Amelia Rodriguez, of Chicago, in Cook County.
However, the plaintiffs sought to expand the action to include potentially thousands of others with similar claims.
The lawsuit centered on claims…
