Chamber Chief on New BIPA Bill: "Move In the Right Direction"
Sen. Bill Cunningham (D-Chicago) is sponsoring legislation to reform the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act, or BIPA.
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The leader of the state’s largest business lobby says proposed changes to a controversial data privacy law are a “move in the right direction,” but says more can be done to help protect businesses from frivolous claims.
The Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) has been at the center of controversy in the last year after a court ruling held fast food restaurant chain White Castle liable for billions of dollars in damages for using fingerprint scanners as time cards.
The State Supreme Court essentially charged the legislature with fixing the law, but no legislation moved forward last year.
Illinois Chamber of Commerce President & CEO Lou Sandoval
Now a new bill from Sen. Bill Cunningham (D-Chicago), a top ally of Senate President Don Harmon, aims at narrowing the penalties under the law.
Cunningham’s bill limits the number of claims available if an employee bring a lawsuit against a company for a violation of BIPA.
In a news release announcing the legislation last month, Cunningham said the law would make sure businesses would not be “unfairly punished” by the BIPA law.
“Our laws have not kept up with changes in technology, which has left some small businesses facing overwhelming financial liabilities,” Cunningham said. “SB 2979 will keep the current privacy restrictions in place and hold violators accountable, as well as ensure businesses are not unfairly punished for technical violations of the law.”
But, Lou Sandoval, the President & CEO of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce said the bill improves the BIPA issues, he would like more security exemptions in the bill and a fix to prevent retroactive penalization of businesses.
“It’s been difficult for businesses because it isn’t mal intended in terms of what they’ve sought to do,” Sandoval said. “I think it’s just that business wasn’t given a voice at the table and now we’re trying to undo a piece of legislation that was very one sided.”
He says businesses are cognizant of data privacy, and shouldn’t be penalized for the use of modern technology.
“Data privacy is something that needs to be considered in everything that we do,” Sandoval said. “But there’s limitations and scopes that you can put on a lot of this in terms of how the data is captured and how long you hang on to it. You can fence in some of these issues.”
Sandoval made his comments Tuesday on WMAY in Springfield.