Chicago Business Attorney Blog

The recent deaths of a motorist and a pedestrian in separate incidents in California and Arizona, respectively, both of which are under National Transportation Safety Board investigation, raise the question of whether autonomous driving technology has become safe enough for day-to-day roadway use.

A man from Peninsula, California, died when his Tesla Model X, which data from the vehicle log showed was in autopilot mode at the time, crashed into a concrete barrier on Highway 101 in nearby Mountain View.

Other Tesla drivers reported similar experiences near this same reeway barrier and others, corroborating accounts of the overall unreliability of the autopilot system near such dividers. At least one Tesla owner who drove near the barrier in question posted several videos showing autopilot steering to the left—straight toward the divider.

Pot in the Workplace?

Illinois legalized the use of marijuana for more than three-dozen medical conditions starting in 2016, and by the end of 2017, nearly 35,000 people had applied for the program. Earlier this month, the legislature voted to allow the use of marijuana in lieu of prescription painkillers, to help avoid opioid addiction, which Governor Bruce Rauner is considering whether to sign.

And if Democratic candidate J.B. Pritzker defeats Rauner in this November’s elections, he has taken the position that he wants to legalize marijuana use in the state for recreational purposes, for the tax revenue it will bring into the state and the law enforcement and prison resources it will save. So where does this leave employers who still want to regulate its use in the workplace?

The growth of online paid subscription services that start with either a free trial that converts to automatic payments, or an upfront payment that automatically renews, have led to lawsuits challenging the clarity of such services’ terms of agreement.

A recent settlement that could total close to $2.3 million between several California jurisdictions and eHarmony, Inc., underscores the fact that small businesses offering automatic renewal subscription plans must present clear terms to customers prior to signup, and then obtain clear consent and an opt-in from customers to incur these fees.

The district attorneys of four California counties and the City of Santa Monica collectively filed the suit against eHarmony for allegedly violating state consumer protection laws—the California Business and Professions Code, and the Restore Online Shoppers Confidence Act. The Superior Court for the State of California for the County of Santa Cruz entered final judgment on Jan. 8.

The Biometric Information Privacy Act, which the Illinois legislature passed in 2008, has led to a barrage of class action lawsuits in the past six months. Thought to be the nation’s most stringent law protecting biometric identifiers—which include fingerprints, iris or face scans, and voice identification—BIPA has spurred about 30 such suits in Cook County alone.

Filed against employers such as gas stations, restaurants, and retail outlets, mostly stemming from employer time clocks that use fingerprint identification, the cases allege that businesses did not obtain proper informed consent from their employees, or did not maintain or inform employees about the company’s use, storage and destruction of biometric data, as required by the law. Some of the cases also claim the employer improperly shared with time clock vendors the biometric data, and some go so far as name these third parties as defendants.

These local cases follow on the heels of five class-action lawsuits that were filed in 2015, four against Facebook and one against Shutterfly, which allege that these social media companies used facial recognition software without asking for consent or following under procedural requirements under BIPA, which allows an “aggrieved” person to recover $1,000 for each negligent violation and $5,000 for each intentional or reckless violation.

Small business owners with customers based in the European Union will want to circle May 25 on their calendars. That’s the date that the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) goes into effect, significantly impacting enterprise cybersecurity and data governance policies and practices among organizations that handle data on EU citizens and residents.

In the U.S., businesses do not face an overarching data protection law—measures related to data protection are contained in various statutes and regulations, many of them at the state level, with California and Massachusetts, home to major tech companies, having probably the strictest requirements.

Stateside small businesses will need to continue to keep track of the patchwork quilt of U.S. laws and regulations while gearing up to become 100 percent compliant with GDPR, which means they need to begin implementing the necessary technologies yesterday.