AWS Urges Denial of Motion to Remand BIPA Case to Ill. State Court

Plaintiff Cynthia Redd’s motion to remand her Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act case against Amazon Web Services is "moot” and should be denied, said AWS' opposition Wednesday (docket 1:22-cv-06779) in U.S. District Court for Northern California.

Redd's remand request would send the case to Cook County Circuit Court where it originated before AWS removed it in December (see 2303060039. AWS since moved to dismiss all of Redd’s allegations for lack of personal jurisdiction and failure to state a claim.

Redd argues her Section 15(c) claim alleges nothing more than a general and procedural, statutory harm, “not the concrete and particularized injury needed to support Article III standing," said AWS. But her complaint “tells a very different story,” AWS said, saying her complaint alleges that by failing to comply with Section 15(c), AWS further violated her “substantive privacy interests” and undermined her “statutory[ily] protected right” to control the “collection, use and storage” of her biometric data, said AWS. Both purported injuries are “more than enough" to support Article III standing, it said.

Redd seeks to hold AWS liable under BIPA based on her use of a mobile job placement service offered by nonparty Wonolo, which has an on-demand web-based staffing platform that helps connect job seekers with employers, said AWS. In May 2020, Webb signed up for Wonolo, which required her to upload an image of her face via its app. After she accepted positions via the app, Wonolo required her to submit more images of her face at a Wonolo device at a customer-employer jobsite location, Redd alleged. Wonolo hired AWS to host data from its job placement app and provide software services, including AWS’ Rekognition program to track her time worked, she said.

Redd doesn’t allege AWS played a role in Wonolo’s verification process, beyond allowing it to use the Rekognition service, nor does she allege AWS knew of Wonolo’s activity, said AWS’ opposition. But she claims AWS should be held liable under BIPA because it provided cloud services to Wonolo and Wonolo allegedly used those services to collect her biometric data, said AWS.

The lack of personal jurisdiction is a “straightforward issue” for the court, said AWS. That Redd chose to interact with an AWS customer, Wonolo, in Illinois isn't enough to exert personal jurisdiction over AWS, it said, citing Supreme Court and 7th Circuit rulings.