By CAPITOL NEWS ILLINOIS

SPRINGFIELD — People who’ve been subject to fingerprinting, face or retinal scans as either employees or customers of Illinois companies have five years to file lawsuits if they believe the business violated a stringent state privacy law, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled this week.

It’s the latest in a handful of cases that have reached Illinois’ high court in recent years, all refining the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act. Also known as BIPA, the first-of-its-kind law has, since 2008, made Illinois the only state that grants a private right of action to sue over the improper collection and mishandling of biometric data.

The justices on Thursday ruled BIPA has an unequivocal five-year statute of limitations on all claims under the law – not a one-year window as employers and business groups had hoped for.

In this case, logistics company Black Horse Carriers Inc., which has since been acquired by trucking giant Penske, faced a class action lawsuit. A former employee initiated the suit, alleging the company violated BIPA by requiring time clock fingerprint authentication without maintaining a publicly available policy on how the company would treat employees’ biometric data.

The suit also claimed Black Horse failed to provide notice to employees that the timeclock was collecting their fingerprints, and didn’t explicitly get employees’ consent. The company argued the court should’ve applied the one-year statute of limitations under Illinois’ Right of Publicity Act. But the court unanimously disagreed.

In issuing a blanket five-year statute of limitations for all BIPA claims, the 5-0 majority of the court emphasized that “the full ramifications of the harms associated with biometric technology is unknown.” Without the law, the court wrote, individuals whose biometric data was improperly collected or disseminated might never even know it – at least until they felt the consequences.

Thursday’s opinion was another legal victory for proponents of BIPA – especially a handful of law firms specializing in filing class action cases over biometric data. Those attorneys have made the same basic argument in thousands of lawsuits over the last several years: if someone’s identity is stolen, they can obtain a new social security number. But if their biometric data is stolen, it’s impossible to get a new fingerprint or face.

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MEGASITE GRANTS: Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Monday announced the creation of a $40 million grant program to incentivize the creation of large development-ready areas known as “megasites” across the state.

Megasites are large swaths of land, developed to attract businesses such as manufacturing plants, warehouses and distribution centers. Pritzker said developing these sites will help make Illinois more competitive, especially as sectors including clean energy and manufacturing are rapidly expanding in the U.S.

The Megasites Development Program announced Monday uses Rebuild Illinois capital funds aimed at providing the necessary infrastructure improvements to develop these megasites. Other eligible costs include various land acquisition, clean-up and development expenses.

“The new megasites investment program grants will help communities innovate their own business attraction efforts and will spur economic development in communities across our great state,” Pritzker said at a news conference.

The program is open to private entities, nonprofits and local governments, and the application portal is open through April 6. Those receiving the grant must match each dollar granted by the state with other private or local funding.

Grant allotments would range from $250,000 up to $5 million, depending on the acreage of the site. Eligible sites must have at least 200 contiguous acres and applicants must own or have an agreement in place to acquire the property when they apply.

Kristin Richards, acting director of the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, said the investment-ready sites may lure manufacturing and distribution hubs, or large scale one-stop shops that produce multi-part products within one location.

“I like to think of megasites as turn-key houses: move-in ready, with zero hassle, which is exactly what fast-growing businesses are looking for,” Richards said.

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GUN LAWSUITS: A temporary restraining order that partially blocks Illinois’ new assault weapons ban from being enforced will remain in place after a divided state appellate court panel’s ruling Tuesday, Jan. 31.

The restraining order was issued Jan. 20 by Effingham County Circuit Judge Joshua Morrison, but it applies only to the 800 or so gun owners and firearms dealers named as plaintiffs in the suit. The case was filed by southern Illinois attorney Thomas DeVore, the unsuccessful Republican candidate for attorney general in 2022. On Thursday, Feb. 2, a White County judge issued a similar order for a separate set of plaintiffs.

At the appellate level, in a 2-1 ruling, the justices said plaintiffs in the Effingham County case made a plausible argument that the law violates their rights to equal protection under the law. Under the law, some categories of people – active and retired law enforcement officers, correctional officers and military personnel on active duty, for example – may purchase and possess those weapons. Other groups, such as retired military personnel or those who are not on active duty, are barred from obtaining assault-style weapons after Jan. 1, 2024.

Attorneys for the state argued that it was reasonable to exempt certain groups of people who have extensive training in the use of such firearms. But the court majority rejected that argument, saying: “The fundamental rights at stake require lawmakers to ‘narrowly tailor’ legislation to effectuate its purpose.”

In accepting the argument that equal protection rights are at stake, the appellate court also rejected arguments that the General Assembly violated the Illinois Constitution’s requirements that bills deal with only one subject, that they be read three times on different days in both chambers, and the guarantee of due process.

Justice Barry L. Vaughn wrote the decision. Justice Mark M. Boie concurred in the opinion while Justice James R. Moore dissented in part, saying he would have overturned the circuit court entirely by rejecting the equal protection argument.

The law bans the sale and purchase of a long list of semi-automatic weapons defined as “assault weapons,” .50 caliber rifles and large-capacity magazines, as well as various devices that effectively convert other weapons into something identical to one of the banned weapons.

The ruling means that the state is prevented from enforcing the law against the named plaintiffs in the case. The decision is expected to be appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court.

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TEACHER SHORTAGE: Illinois schools are still grappling with a teacher shortage that seems to only be getting worse, a recent survey by the Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools shows.

This mirrors the state’s own data, which shows Illinois’ teacher shortage is at the highest level in the last five years. More than 5,300 classroom positions, including administrative and support personnel, went unfilled in 2022, according to the Illinois State Board of Education.

As a result, teachers often have to absorb unsupervised students into their existing classes or fill in for subject areas in which they have no background.

According to their 2022 survey of more than 700 districts, 68 percent of districts reported fewer teacher applicants than the year before. And 45 percent of districts reported the shortage in their school had worsened from the year prior.

One area of focus, IARSS President Mark Klaisner said, is improving the pipeline between education institutions and Illinois’ K-12 schools by starting educator recruitment earlier. That could include programs that allow middle schoolers to shadow teachers.

He also advocated for dual credit programs that allow students to earn some college credit while in high school.

The report also calls for direct state funding to key areas to encourage more diversity within the profession. This includes increasing funding from $4.2 million to $7 million annually for the Minority Teachers of Illinois scholarship; investing more money into the Illinois Teachers Loan Repayment Program which helps pay down student loan debt for Illinois college students that qualify to teach in low-income areas; and further increasing the state’s Monetary Award Program by $50 million.

To better fill gaps in the short term, Klaisner pointed to incentivizing teachers to complete additional subject endorsements, which can be done through the ISBE website.

Other recommendations include observing how districts have used federal pandemic-era Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds to help teachers get provisional licenses in shortage subject areas. Additionally, the survey recommends strengthening the state’s educator prep programs by showing which paths have stronger results in teacher placement and success.

Several survey respondents also noted that a 2010 state law creating a lower tier of pension benefits for new employees has made the teaching profession less desirable from a compensation standpoint.

The survey also showed strong support for policies increasing the number of days retired teachers can substitute without impacting their retirement benefits and allowing currently enrolled teaching students with at least 90 credit hours to be licensed as substitute teachers.

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COLLEGE BOARD CONTROVERSY: Gov. JB Pritzker this week asked the College Board for more information about its reasoning for changing the final framework of a new Advanced Placement course in African American studies after it had been criticized by Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

“Although we are pleased to see many core ideas remain in place, there are still significant issues with the way the College Board has chosen to present this curriculum,” Pritzker said in an email statement. “Refusing to name the components of Black history that Gov. DeSantis is most afraid of like intersectionality, feminism and queer Black life but still including them in the curriculum can be viewed as a weak attempt to please extremists.”

The College Board – the not-for-profit organization that administers the SAT test as well as AP courses through which high school students can earn college credit – first released a pilot course in August in 60 high schools. It then spent months refining the course with feedback from college professors and high school teachers before releasing the final framework on Wednesday, Feb. 1, the first day of Black History Month in the United States.

But the subject immediately became embroiled in culture war politics when conservatives attacked it for promoting “critical race theory” – the idea that racial disparities are the result of systemic prejudices that are woven into the fabric of institutions. DeSantis blocked it from being offered in his state, claiming it violated a Florida law known as the “Stop Wrongs Against Our Kids and Employees Act,” or the Stop WOKE Act.

According to reports, DeSantis specifically objected to the teaching of concepts like “intersectionality” – the overlapping of categories such as race, class and gender and other sources of discrimination to create unique dynamics and effects – as well as Black queer studies, the Black Lives Matter movement and the reparations movement.

That prompted a backlash from Democratic lawmakers in Florida as well as Pritzker, who wrote to the College Board on Jan. 25, warning it not to change the curriculum or cave in to pressure from conservatives like DeSantis.

The College Board, meanwhile, issued a news release announcing the final framework and addressing controversy.

“No states or districts have seen the official framework that is released, much less provided feedback on it,” the board said. “This course has been shaped only by the input of experts and long-standing AP principles and practices.”

A spokeswoman for Pritzker said Wednesday that any local district in Illinois that wants to offer the course is free to do so.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government. It is distributed to more than 400 newspapers statewide, as well as hundreds of radio and TV stations. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.