Wernick & Associates, Ltd.
MONTH-IN-BRIEF (Apr 2026)
7th Circuit Holds BIPA Damages Remedy Applies Retroactively
By Alan S. Wernick, Esq., Wernick & Associates, LTD.
In my article “How Will the Recent Amendments to Illinois’s BIPA Affect the Use of Biometric Data?” I reported on the Illinois State Legislature’s changes in Senate Bill 2979 to the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”). The changes were effective on August 2, 2024. One of those changes amended the limits on damages to one recovery per violation per person, regardless of the number of instances of collections of biometric information using the same method. A recent decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Clay v. Union Pacific Railroad Co. (April 1, 2026), held that the change in damages applies retroactively to cases pending when the BIPA amendments became effective.