Sojung Lee
90 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 795
The standing doctrine says that a plaintiff only has standing when that plaintiff has suffered a concrete injury that is fairly traceable to the defendant, and the court can likely provide redress for the injury. The doctrine becomes complicated when addressing instances of privacy harms because these harms are usually intangible and sometimes speculative. This is especially true for cases of biometric privacy, where the alleged harm comes from a violation of a biometric privacy statute regulating the collection, use, and storage of a person’s biometric data. There has been division among the courts as to whether such a statutory violation amounts to a concrete injury sufficient for Article III standing. This Note argues that, after the decision in TransUnion v. Ramirez, courts should apply Ramirez to allow standing in biometric privacy suits. To read Ramirez otherwise would lead to an absurd result and a usurpation of legislative determinations. Therefore, in order to respect legislative intent and protect people’s privacy interests, this Note argues that courts should allow Article III standing in instances of biometric privacy statutory violations.
