BNSF must pay truck drivers $228 mln for privacy violation

*

Verdict comes in first trial under tough Illinois privacy law

*

Drivers needed fingerprint scans to access facilities-lawsuits

By Brendan Pierson

(Reuters) - A jury has ordered freight railway giant BNSF Railway Co to pay $228 million to tens of thousands of truck drivers after finding the company collected the drivers' fingerprints without consent.

The verdict, handed Wednesday evening in Chicago federal court, came after the first trial under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), a state law which restricts collection of biometric data like fingerprints or retinal scans.

"We’re very pleased with the verdict and it shows that privacy is important and that companies must comply with the law, and will be held accountable if they don’t," said David Gerbie of McGuire Law, a lawyer for the plaintiffs.

The company said in a statement it believed the verdict "reflects a misunderstanding of key issues" and that it would appeal.

The class action was filed in 2019 by one driver, Richard Rogers, who said that BNSF required truck drivers to scan their fingerprints when picking up and dropping off loads at the company's Illinois facilities. Rogers said the practice violated Illinois' BIPA.

The class included 45,600 drivers. The verdict represents $5,000 per driver, the maximum allowed under the law.

The law, passed in 2008, is one of the toughest biometric privacy laws in the country, requiring companies to obtain written consent before collecting any biometric data.

Many companies have been sued under the law, including Amazon.com, Microsoft Inc and Facebook, which in 2020 agreed to pay $650 million to settle a class action accusing it of violating the law by storing users' facial geometry for a feature that automatically recognized people in photographs.

Fort Worth, Texas-based BNSF is owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. It operates one of the largest freight rail networks in the United States.

The case is Rogers v. BNSF Railway Company, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, No. 1:19-cv-03083.

For plaintiffs: Jon Loevy of Loevy & Loevy, Myles McGuire and David Gerbie of McGuire Law, and others

For BNSF: Elizabeth Herrington of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius

Read more:

Judge tackles scope of biometric privacy law in Amazon, Microsoft rulings

One U.S. state stands out in restricting corporate use of biometrics: Illinois

Facebook raises settlement to $650 million in facial recognition lawsuit