The US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Monday refused to dismiss a class action brought by a former Amazon employee on behalf of all bereaved employees over failure to gain consent regarding facial recognition data.

The case concerns procedures in light of the COVID- 19 restrictions that Amazon implemented for its employees, in which they collected “facial geometry” and other biometric data. Former employee William Naughton, who was a picker at an Amazon warehouse, accused the e-commerce giant of violating state data privacy laws. Amazon allegedly scanned the faces and checked the temperatures of its employees then disclosed this information to third parties. District Judge Mary Rowland concluded that Naughton’s allegations against Amazon regarding both the “possession” and “collection” of biometric data were sufficiently pleaded and, therefore, could not be dismissed.

Amazon also argued that Naughton failed to argue that it took an “active step”  in data collecting his biometric data, as required by Section 15(d) of Illinois’ Biometric Information Protection Act (BIPA). Judge Rowland disagreed, concluding that Naughton correctly plead “plausible dissemination” of his information.

Naughton’s claims against Amazon also include illegal storing of the biometric data, rather than appropriately discarding it. Illinois data privacy laws prevent private companies from gathering, selling, transferring or trading biometric data. Facebook faced a similar suit under the BIPA back in 2015 and settled the case for $650 million this year.