ILLINOIS · WORKPLACE BIOMETRICS · WHITE CASTLE

White Castle employees repeatedly scanned fingerprints to access computers and pay records.

Fingerprint authentication → repeated scans and third-party verification → Illinois Supreme Court says each unlawful scan/transmission can accrue separately

WHERE

Cook County · IL

View this place in the Illinois surveillance directory →

Latrina Cothron worked for White Castle in Illinois beginning in 2004. According to her complaint, White Castle introduced a system requiring employees to scan fingerprints to access computers and pay stubs. A third-party vendor verified the scans and authorized access.

Cothron alleged that White Castle did not obtain BIPA-compliant consent for the collection and transmission of her biometric data until 2018. The central legal question became whether a violation happened only on the first scan or could recur each time the fingerprint was captured and transmitted.

In 2023, the Illinois Supreme Court held that a separate claim accrues under BIPA each time a private entity unlawfully scans a biometric identifier and each time it unlawfully transmits the resulting biometric information.

Why it matters: Biometric surveillance is often repetitive by design. A fingerprint time clock or access system does not merely enroll a worker once; it can create a new biometric transaction every time the worker performs an ordinary job function.

Court source: Illinois Supreme Court — Cothron v. White Castle, 2023 IL 128004

WHY THIS LIBRARY EXISTS

This page preserves the anecdote and its caveats separately from the shorter Why Privacy Matters explainer. The goal is to keep the argument readable without hiding the receipts.