Tag Archives: biometric

Can Law Enforcement Force You To Use Your Finger to Unlock Your Phone?

Can a fingerprint alone provide “testimony” about a person?  Earlier this month, a federal court in California said yes.  But the court was not engaging in a highly-localized form of palm-reading; rather, the question arose in the ever-evolving field of how to balance law enforcement needs and individual citizens’ privacy interests as new technologies emerge.

The United States District Court for the Northern District of California has been a hotspot for privacy-related litigation,… More

On to Trial—Summary Judgment Denied to Facebook in Privacy Litigation

The litigation over Facebook’s Tag Suggestions feature in the United State District Court for the Northern District of California continues, with the court this week denying both sides’ bids for summary judgment in a ten-page order. The case, formerly captioned Patel v. Facebook and now going by the name of In re Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation, is on course to proceed to trial in July.… More

Federal Judge Prevents Sale of CLEAR Customers’ Personal Data

On August 18, a federal judge in the Southern District of New York entered an injunction forbidding Verified Identity Pass, Inc. (VIP) to sell or transfer any of the confidential customer information it compiled while operating the CLEAR express airport check-in program.  The CLEAR program collected a range of customer biographic information (e.g., name, address, etc.) as well as biometric information, including the customer’s fingerprints and iris scan.  This information was used to expedite the airport check-in process.… More