Year In Review: 2023 BIPA Litigation Takeaways

This post is part of a series of articles we are doing on 2023 data protection litigation trends. To stay up to date with our writings, please subscribe to the WilmerHale Privacy and Cybersecurity Blog.

Since its enactment in 2008, Illinois's Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) has produced a wave of privacy-related litigation across the United States, and 2023 was no exception. Last year featured hundreds of new BIPA cases in both federal and state court. There were also four notable BIPA decisions by the Illinois Supreme Court, all of which will impact how the law will be interpreted in future cases.

As we explain below, many 2023 BIPA cases expand the scope of liability for entities that process biometric data pursuant to the law. These cases also continue to leave important questions unanswered, such as how the law applies to certain healthcare entities and third-party claims. It is likely that many of these issues, as well as a host of new ones, will