PHILADELPHIA (LN) — The Third Circuit affirmed the dismissal of Pindrop Security and summary judgment for Amazon Web Services in a putative class action under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act. The court ruled that the law does not apply extraterritorially to Amazon and that Pindrop is exempt as a financial institution.
The court held that BIPA lacks the clear intent required to apply outside Illinois, meaning the law cannot reach Amazon’s collection of voiceprints on servers in Northern Virginia.
The panel also ruled that Pindrop is exempt from BIPA because its authentication services for John Hancock customers constitute “financial activities” under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.
Plaintiffs, Illinois residents who called John Hancock to discuss retirement accounts, alleged that Amazon and Pindrop violated BIPA by collecting their voiceprints without consent.
Amazon routed the calls through Amazon Connect, and Pindrop used cloud-based technology to authenticate the callers.
The Third Circuit joined the Seventh and Ninth Circuits in holding that BIPA applies only to conduct that “occurred primarily and substantially in Illinois.”
Judge Andrew Porter wrote for the panel that Amazon had no interaction with Illinois, noting that no Amazon employee in the state accessed biometric data and the servers were in Virginia.
The court rejected the plaintiffs’ argument that the location of the harmed individuals should control, emphasizing that the relevant activities occurred outside the state.
Regarding Pindrop, the court found that the Federal Reserve Board has determined that authenticating the identity of persons conducting financial transactions is closely related to banking.
Because Pindrop provided authentication services for John Hancock’s financial transactions, it fell within BIPA’s financial-institution exemption.
The Third Circuit also affirmed the district court’s denial of the plaintiffs’ motion for voluntary dismissal of newly added class representatives, citing the four-year duration of the litigation and the prejudice to Amazon.
The court noted that Amazon had already produced 36,000 pages of discovery and responded to 56 document requests before the plaintiffs sought to remove the new parties.
The panel affirmed the district court’s grant of judgment on the pleadings for the Section 15(d) claim, ruling that the plaintiffs revived the previously dismissed claim by repleading it in an amended complaint.
The case was appealed from the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, where Judge Stephanos Bibas presided.
The panel included U.S. Circuit Judges Porter, Montgomery-Reeves, and Bove.