Eye On Illinois: Walgreens debit card receipt at center of larger legal question

When is a crime a crime: When a law is broken? When the act is proven? When there is a victim? These and other big picture questions loom over a case heading to the Illinois Supreme Court.

The litigation in question exemplifies how one person’s concerns can balloon until they influence or alter statewide policy. The root incident was a March 2019 receipt from a Walgreens store in Phoenix, Arizona, that included the first six and final four digits of a customer’s reloadable purchase card, allegedly violating the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act.

According to the complaint filed later that year in Lake County, where Walgreens has corporate headquarters, all similarly situated customers should be able to join a class action accusing the retail pharmacy giant of jeopardizing the security of personal financial information. But Walgreens argued the customer wasn’t legally harmed: there was no identify theft. Furthermore, it contended, a reloadable purchase card isn’t linked to personal bank or credit cards.

The customer’s lawyers said the Illinois Supreme Court has already ruled – twice – a technical violation is all that’s needed for a lawsuit to proceed. Except instead of card receipts, the subject was personal identifiers as covered under the Biometric Information Privacy Act. The court’s first such decision, in a lawsuit regarding the fingerprint scanners at Six Flags Great America, hinged on a ruling plaintiffs had to show the company acted outside the letter of the law.

Many millions of dollars are at stake. While any legal proceedings can get caught up in technicalities, the macro issues warrant discussion, and perhaps eventually General Assembly intervention.

Think about your car: Park it in a fire lane and a ticket is possible, regardless of whether a big red truck needed the spot. Same thing for rolling through a stop sign. It doesn’t matter if there are any safety implications. The sign says stop, so you have to stop. Of course, in order to be on the hook for those fines, the right agent of the state has to observe the infraction. Otherwise, no crime was committed – at least not as far as your permanent record shows.

When lawmakers enacted BIPA, they intended civil litigation to be the enforcement mechanism. That’s different from a lot of federal legislation where a specific agency is empowered to seek violations and pursue punishment. Think of the Federal Trade or Securities and Exchange commissions, or the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. All have significant subject-area powers and, not coincidentally, are recently under increased U.S. Supreme Court scrutiny.

Which courts hear BIPA proceedings has been vital, and FACTA lawsuits appear to be similarly particular. However, the Walgreens case resolves, the larger discussions seem ripe for legislative response.

• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Media. Follow him on Twitter @sth749. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.