Bryant v. Compass Group USA, Inc.

Dist. Ct. erred in finding that plaintiff-class representative lacked Article III standing to pursue claim under section 15(b) of Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), alleging that defendant failed to make disclosures regarding retention of biometric fingerprint identification information, under circumstances where defendant had removed instant case to federal court under Class Action Fairness Act. While Dist. Ct. granted plaintiff's motion to remand case back to state court for lack of federal Article III standing to pursue her case, because, in its view, violations of BIPA were bare procedural violations that caused no concrete harm to plaintiff, Ct. of Appeals found that plaintiff had Article III standing to pursue alleged section 15(b) violations, because said violations concerned invasion of personal rights that is both concrete and particularized as to plaintiff. As such, remand to state court was in error, since case could proceed in federal court.  However, plaintiff lacked Article III standing to proceed on her section 15(a) of BIPA claim, alleging that defendant failed to make public any guidelines for permanently destroying biometric identifiers it was storing, since: (1) said duty to disclose under section 15(a) was owed to public generally and not to particular person whose biometric information defendant had collected; and (2) plaintiff failed to allege particularized harm with respect to any section 15(a) violation.