Background
Plaintiff William Clements sued Gunnar Optiks, LLC, alleging violations of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act. The suit arose from a virtual try-on feature that scanned users’ faces to display how glasses would look. Gunnar argued the data collection was exempt because it fell under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act exclusion for health care operations. The district court dismissed the complaint, accepting Gunnar’s assertion that the glasses relieve eye strain as a medical treatment.
The court’s reasoning
Circuit Judge Easterbrook wrote that the district court improperly accepted Gunnar’s contention that the glasses relieve eye strain as a basis for dismissal. Factual defenses regarding product efficacy must be proven by evidence, not assumed at the pleading stage. Furthermore, collecting facial data for aesthetic purposes does not constitute information collected for health care treatment. The court also noted that the statutory exemption requires the entity to comply with HIPAA, a factual issue not resolvable from the complaint alone.
What it means going forward
The case returns to the district court for discovery and further proceedings to determine if the data collection qualifies for the HIPAA exemption and whether the glasses serve a medical function.