Why Does This Matter?

This case doesn't argue an AI tool was biased - it argues HireVue never should have collected applicants' facial data the way it did in the first place. And unlike most cases tracked on this site, it goes straight after the AI vendor, not the employer that used the vendor's product.

A privacy law, not a discrimination law

The Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) has nothing to do with bias or discriminatory outcomes - it requires informed consent and public disclosure before anyone collects "biometric identifiers," a category that explicitly includes "face geometry." That makes this case a genuinely different legal track than Mobley v. Workday or Harper v. Sirius XM: even if an AI hiring tool made perfectly fair decisions, collecting facial-geometry data without BIPA-compliant notice and consent could still be illegal on its own. (source: U.S. District Court, N.D. Ill., Memorandum Order)

An out-of-state vendor can be sued where its customers are

HireVue's strongest argument for dismissal was that Illinois courts had no business hearing a case against a Utah-based company with no meaningful physical presence in the state. The court rejected that: because HireVue knowingly sold its software to an Illinois-headquartered company (Health Care Service Corporation) and that software was used to interview Illinois residents, HireVue "purposefully availed itself of the Illinois market." That's a meaningful precedent for any case trying to reach an AI vendor directly, rather than the employer using its product - it confirms a vendor can't necessarily avoid a state's courts just by having no offices or major operations there, if it knowingly lets its product reach that state's residents. (source: U.S. District Court, N.D. Ill., Memorandum Order)

A new Illinois AI law didn't wipe out the older privacy law

HireVue also argued that Illinois' newer, AI-specific law - the Artificial Intelligence Video Interview Act - should override BIPA for exactly this kind of AI video-interview claim, since it more specifically addresses the technology at issue. The court disagreed, holding that a more specific law doesn't automatically wipe out an older, more general one unless the legislature said so, and nothing in the newer law suggested lawmakers meant to limit BIPA's reach. That matters beyond this one case: it signals that a state passing an AI-specific statute doesn't automatically shield companies from older privacy or consumer-protection laws already on the books. (source: U.S. District Court, N.D. Ill., Memorandum Order)

Not every claim survived

The ruling wasn't a clean sweep for the plaintiffs. The court dismissed their claim that HireVue illegally "profited" from their biometric data, because the complaint only alleged HireVue profited from selling its software generally - not from the biometric data itself - and the Seventh Circuit has held that a "bare violation" of BIPA isn't enough without some further, individualized harm. That distinction - profiting from a product that happens to process biometric data, versus profiting from the data itself - is likely to keep coming up in future BIPA cases against AI vendors. (source: U.S. District Court, N.D. Ill., Memorandum Order)

A settlement, not a final verdict

Like most class actions of this kind, the case ended in a negotiated settlement rather than a trial. The settlement is being finalized through a new state-court filing with its own class period (Jan. 27, 2017 - June 25, 2026) and its own approval schedule, running through an October 28, 2026 final approval hearing - so the practical resolution for class members is still playing out even though the underlying federal lawsuit is closed. (source: official settlement website)

For the sequence of events, see the timeline. For background on who's involved, see who's involved.