Protecting our electronic privacy requires vigilance

After lawmakers beat off a slew of bills to gut the Biometric Information Privacy Act, someone sneakily slipped in language into a last-minute budget bill to try to gut BIPA.

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An employee scans the eyes of a woman for biometric data needed to apply for a passport, at the passport office in Kabul, Afghanistan, on June 30.

AP file photo

If Illinoisans want to protect what remains of their electronic privacy, they must be vigilant and vocal.

At the close of this year’s legislative session, when the Legislature passed the usual massive budget implementation legislation, someone tried to sneak language into the bill’s hundreds of pages that would have virtually stripped away some privacy rights for everyone in the state without debate or discussion. The wording would have gutted Illinois’ first-in-the-nation Biometric Information Privacy Act.

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That was after legislators beat back a variety of bills during the session that would have attempted the same thing.

Many companies would like nothing more than to surreptitiously make off with our personal biometric information, such as our fingerprints, voice prints, retinal scans or facial recognition — any information derived from body measurements and human characteristics — and sell it to the highest bidder, who might use the data to track us in ways we can hardly imagine.

The common-sense 2008 Biometric Information Protection Act, widely called BIPA, is not some onerous imposition on commerce. It merely requires that companies that gather biometric information inform users they are doing so, explain how the data will be used or sold and obtain users’ permission. As long as they follow those rules, companies are free to exploit any benefits biometric information might provide. If anything, we’d like to see the protections beefed up for consumers.

How might this affect you? People whom you don’t even know could track whether you are going to a political demonstration or a counseling center or to look for another job. Companies might use the information to deny you access to their premises. Biometric information already has been used to see who shows up in church on Sunday. Imagine just walking down the street and having a variety of businesses and government agencies, unseen in the background, putting you on the bad list because they don’t like where you are going.

Or, if they misidentify you through the usual electronic snafus, you might wind up on the list for something someone else has done, and you might never know it. If your biometric information winds up in the wrong places, it can’t be revoked or reissued.

Companies in Illinois already use facial recognition at fast-food kiosks, for security access and for check-ins at health clubs. People might find that convenient, but they don’t want their information resold without their knowledge to unnamed vendors who could resell it and spread it across the dark web, where it could linger forever. 

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Companies don’t always adhere to BIPA. Hyatt Corp. this week agreed to pay $1.5 million for gathering employee fingerprints without getting their permission and making the necessary disclosures. Other companies have settled similar complaints.

The Legislature is out of session at the moment, but as soon as lawmakers return to Springfield, someone undoubtedly will target BIPA again. Illinois voters must make it clear to their representatives they do not want that to happen.

Send letters to letters@suntimes.com.

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