Below is a chart outlining this litigation spike:
Throughout the remainder of 2023, lawsuit filings continued to grow in number and sophistication as they targeted more advanced and innovative technologies. Given the five-year statute of limitations, and the potential for enhanced monetary penalties, we anticipate that filings and settlement numbers in BIPA litigation will continue to expand. Despite the Illinois statute being the most controversial privacy law, it is far from the only one on which the courts focused in 2023. Various states are continuing to consider a series of proposed copycat statutes that follow the lead of Illinois, and the federal government continues to consider proposals for a national statute. These factors have transformed biometric privacy compliance into a top priority for businesses nationwide and have promoted privacy class actions to the top of the list of litigation risks facing business today. Against this backdrop, corporate decision-makers can expect to continue to see several key trends in 2024. In terms of lawsuit filings, for nearly a decade following the enactment of the BIPA, activity under the statute was largely dormant. There was an average of approximately two total suits filed per year from 2008 through 2016. Those numbers grew exponentially in 2017 and 2018, as the plaintiffs’ class action bar filed a surge of class action lawsuits. In 2023, companies saw more than five times as many class action lawsuit filings for alleged violations of BIPA than they saw in 2018, and more than the number of class action lawsuit filings that they saw from
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© Duane Morris LLP 2024
Duane Morris Privacy Class Action Review – 2024
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