FingerprintWelcome to Vedder Price’s inaugural edition of the BIPA Bellwether.  As with our TCPA Turnstile, we intend for the BIPA Bellwether to serve as a periodic report on latest developments.

Last week, the Supreme Court of Illinois issued an order that likely will clarify when Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”), 740 ILCS 14 et seq., claims may be asserted in the employment context.  This order comes at a time when BIPA cases are surging and Illinois appellate court decisions interpreting the act are scarce.  As a result, the Court’s order—and the decision that will follow—signal a potential avenue for dismissal that may provide much needed guidance for BIPA litigants. Continue Reading BIPA Bellwether: New Illinois Supreme Court Order Foreshadows Employment Guidance

Phone and gavelOne of the few things that hasn’t changed significantly since our last TCPA update is, well, the TCPA. We have a new year, a new President and multiple new COVID vaccines.  And after the December oral argument in Facebook v. Duguid before the Supreme Court, 2021 could be the year when we receive clarity on the critical TCPA question of what constitutes an automatic telephone dialing system (“ATDS”).  Indeed, the argument seemed positive for the TCPA defense bar, with Justices Alito and Thomas chafing at the anachronistic nature of the statute and Justices Sotomayor and Gorsuch expressing concerns about the idea that every cellphone user could be subject to civil liability.  But for now, the TCPA litigation landscape remains the same bizarre, often inconsistent quagmire that it always has been.  We’ll continue to be your guide through the morass, and we summarize here developments since our last update, listed by issue category in alphabetical order. Continue Reading TCPA Turnstile: New Year, Same TCPA – For Now (TCPA Case Update Vol. 14)

Phone and gavelMany had hoped that the summer of 2020 might bring the end of the TCPA as we know it, by way of the Supreme Court’s decision in Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants.  Of course, that’s not how things played out. The government-backed debt exception is dead, but the rest of the TCPA is still very much alive.  And while the pace of litigation has slowed because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, TCPA decisions continue to roll in and there have been new developments before the FCC.  We reviewed the TCPA cases published and other developments since our last update and compiled the most noteworthy items, listed below by issue category in alphabetical order. Continue Reading TCPA Turnstile: No summer vacation for the TCPA defense bar (TCPA Case Update Vol. 13)

Business man on laptopLast month, the California Attorney General approved the final set of regulations interpreting the requirements of the California Consumer Privacy Act (Cal. Civ. Code Sections 1798.100 et seq.) (the “CCPA”).

What does it include?

The final CCPA regulations include a number of points of clarification such as what it means to provide “notice at collection,” the methods to provide a consumer with access to a business’s privacy policy and what content is required to be disclosed in that privacy policy, and the methods by which a company must provide consumers with a right to opt out from the sale of their personal information. Continue Reading What do the final CCPA regulations mean for you?

Phone and gavelUndoubtedly, the biggest TCPA development in the last month was the recent Supreme Court oral argument in Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants Inc., Case No. 19-631, which has the potential to upend TCPA jurisprudence as we know it.  While we wait for a Supreme Court decision, the oral argument made a few things clear:

Continue Reading TCPA Turnstile: As we wait for a ruling in Barr, new case law abounds (TCPA Case Update Vol. 12)

“Should we do a Zoom?” It has taken little more than a month for the Zoom video conference platform to take its place among the likes of Google, Kleenex and Xerox as brand names synonymous with the product or service being offered. But with that name recognition comes scrutiny, and Zoom is getting plenty. The privacy and security issues associated with Zoom have been well-documented. As a result, Zoom is now facing class action lawsuits from both shareholders and users. And the use of Zoom (and other platforms) can raise ethics issues for lawyers.

Continue Reading Zooming into New Privacy Issues

Phone and gavelWe’re a quarter of the way through 2020 — even if March may have seemed liked several years unto itself — and it is shaping up to be another big year for TCPA litigation.  We’ve gone through the dozens of TCPA decisions published this year and identified the five most notable cases and storylines that we will be following closely for the rest of 2020.

Continue Reading Five Key TCPA cases to Know as We Enter the Second Quarter of 2020 (TCPA Case Update Vol. 11)

Smart companies have been worried about data security for years—no one wants to be in the headlines as the next big company to have a breach, the next corporation to face a class action lawsuit or the next business facing federal or state regulatory scrutiny.  It’s only heightened in recent years as companies faced new regulations imposed by the GDPR and the CCPA.  Well, things are not getting any better in 2020—now an increasing number of municipalities are getting in on the act.

San Francisco was the first city to have this awakening in 2017. In response to the Equifax data breach on September 7, 2017, San Francisco filed claims against Equifax under California’s Unfair Competition Law (UCL).  A few months later, Los Angeles brought a similar lawsuit against Uber claiming that the company paid hackers to delete stolen data and failed to notify consumers of the breach in violation of the UCL.  But most state statutes do not give cities standing to bring lawsuits.

Continue Reading Parking Tickets, Jaywalking, and Cybersecurity Breaches at Multinational Companies: City ordinances are coming off the streets and into the server room

The California Consumer Privacy Act (the “CCPA”), as initially passed, was the hastily-drafted alternative to an even more stringent ballot initiative, resulting in a seemingly endless list of open questions about how it would be interpreted and enforced. Since its passage on June 28, 2018, privacy pundits around the nation have opined about the meaning of the first domestic privacy regulation reminiscent of its European cousin, the GDPR.

In response, the California legislature entered its 2019 session considering a whopping 19 possible amendment bills to the CCPA. When the dust settled, seven of those bills were signed into law.

Continue Reading Seven amendments to CCPA answer the statute’s open questions – sort of

Phone and gavelPerhaps not surprisingly, there was no vacation this summer for TCPA litigation.  We already addressed the 11th Circuit’s big decision on Article III standing in Salcedo.  But we’ve also combed through the 150+ TCPA-related decisions over the summer to keep you apprised of the latest developments in this area of the law.  We’ve compiled the most noteworthy decisions since our last report, and they’re listed below by issue category in alphabetical order.

Continue Reading TCPA Turnstile: Case Update Vol. 10