The League of United Latin American Citizens of Illinois (LULAC), the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) and the Health and Medicine Policy Research Group (HMPRG) today asked an Illinois appellate court to block the forced sharing of private medical information about McHenry County residents who have tested positive for COVID-19 with law enforcement and other first responders. The groups’ brief comes after a Circuit Court judge earlier sided with the law enforcement agencies to require sharing of this private medical information and denied a request by the McHenry County Health Department to reconsider that ruling. LULAC, ICIRR and Health and Medicine Policy Research Group oppose the release of this personal medical information as a violation of their members’ rights to keep their health information private, and as ultimately harmful – not helpful - to the health interests that some claim to be the reason for sharing the data. 
 
The amicus brief filed late yesterday argues specifically that the release of names or addresses of people who test positive for COVID-19 undermines the basic precepts of public health, and has a dangerous and stigmatizing impact on members of vulnerable communities, discouraging many in McHenry County from seeking testing and treatment in the midst of the pandemic. 
 
The three groups are being represented in this action by the ACLU of Illinois. 
 
The brief notes that if names of those who have tested positive for COVID-19 will end up in the hands of law enforcement and other first responders, many community residents will avoid seeking health care, including testing for COVID. The fact is that some will eschew testing and treatment if private medical information is shared, undermining public health efforts designed to protect all residents of McHenry County. 
 
“Undocumented families and families with mixed immigration status – with U.S. citizens, legal residents and undocumented individuals all under the same roof – already live in fear a loved one being swept up by the Trump Administration and fast-tracked for deportation,” added Maggie Rivera of LULAC Illinois and a McHenry County resident. “This is exacerbated by the self-defeating efforts of McHenry police officers who want to create an ineffective list for misguided purposes. We hope the appeals court will block this practice before it creates real harm.”
 
Public health officials oppose the sharing of this information as well – the Illinois Department of Public Health urges that first responders treat every member of the public as potentially infectious given that many people are most contagious in the days before they suspect they may have the virus and can be tested.  Moreover, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines advise first responder dispatchers to pose questions to those seeking EMS services to assess specific risks associated with responding to that call. 
 
Public health experts also note that protecting the confidentiality of medical information is essential to ensuring that people access needed medical care for appropriate diagnosis and treatment. 
 
“Sharing personal medical information for those infected with the virus with law enforcement stands in stark contrast to good public health policy and effective public health practice” says Ameri Klafeta of the ACLU of Illinois. “The pathway out of this pandemic is not through shortcuts and simple solutions. We should respect the personal medical privacy of our neighbors and continue our support for policies that will encourage people to get tested and to help us stem the spread of the disease.” 
 
“Many of our members come from countries and backgrounds where being on a government list is an invitation for stigmatization and discrimination,” added Fred Tsao, policy director at ICIRR. “Being in the United States was supposed to be the end of this sort of behavior, not a continuation. A global pandemic should be a time to put aside this self-defeating idea and seek the public health. Law enforcement in McHenry County needs to hear that message.”
 
“Best practice in public health demands that first responders assume all people they are called to attend to may be COVID positive,” added Margie Schaps, executive director of the Health & Medicine Policy Research Group. “To provide personal medical information only on those who test positive could lull the responders into false complacency about everyone else.  This puts the health of the first responders at risk as it unnecessarily invades people’s medical privacy.”

A copy of the filing in McHenry County is available here.  

Clearview AI directly threatens the personal privacy of nearly every resident in the State of Illinois – and that is why the ACLU of Illinois joined a lawsuit to challenge their illegal practices. Since it was founded, Clearview has captured more than three billion – yes, billion – faceprints from images available on the internet. They have built this massive database with these faceprints, for profit.

When you do something simple like upload a photo of you and your friends to social media, Clearview takes those images and creates faceprints. A faceprint is not simply a name or address or something that is publicly available. Faceprints are biometric identifiers – just like a fingerprint or DNA profile – that are unique to each person. That’s how your iPhone’s face scan works to open your phone.

When compared to a database of faceprints (like Clearview’s database of billions) a photograph can be used to identity someone. A recent report found that more than a half million searches have been conducted using Clearview’s database including over 200 companies, banks, retailers, even the Chicago Cubs. But this database is also being used by law enforcement.

This menacing technology gives governments, companies, and individuals the unprecedented power to spy on us wherever we go — tracking our faces at protests, AA meetings, political rallies, places of worship, and more. The ACLU is taking its fight to defend privacy rights against the growing threat of this unregulated surveillance technology to the courts, even as we double down on our work in legislatures and city councils nationwide.

Over a decade ago, Illinois policy-makers, encouraged by the ACLU of Illinois, anticipated the emergence of surveillance technology and adopted the Biometric Information Privacy Act. As one of the strongest privacy laws in the country, BIPA simply states that an individual’s biometric information (like fingerprints) belongs to them, and cannot be captured and digitized for profit by private companies. Clearview has – and continues – to violate the law.

In the lawsuit filed in Cook County court challenging Clearview’s massive violation of the law and our privacy, we are joined by our colleagues at the ACLU National and the Edelson law firm. We represent a number of local groups who focus on helping survivors of sexual violence, current and former sex workers, immigrants, and advocates for privacy.  These groups – the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation (CAASE), the Sex Workers Outreach Project, Illinois State Public Interest Research Group and Mujeres Latinas en Accion – especially fear that these populations will be targeted by Clearview’s near universal facial recognition system.

 As Linda Xóchitl Tortolero, President and CEO of Mujeres Latinas en Acción, noted, “For many Latinas and survivors, this technology isn’t just unnerving, it’s dangerous, even life-threatening. It gives free rein to stalkers and abusive ex-partners, predatory companies, and ICE agents to track and target us. This company has no business exploiting Illinoisans’ sensitive biometric information without our knowledge and consent.”

Your privacy is threatened by the explosion of invasive surveillance tools, but none are as threatening as the unregulated use of your biometric information. We are suing to force Clearview to follow the rules that Illinois lawmakers have put into place and end the use of this invasive program. 

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