Illinois has expanded the Illinois Human Rights Act to include regulations on the use of AI in employment decisions, ensuring that AI tools do not result in discriminatory practices. This new law mandates transparency, requiring employers to disclose the use of AI in hiring, promotion, or termination processes, and to audit these tools for fairness and compliance ..read more

The recent amendment to Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) will reshape biometric privacy litigation. Illinois' BIPA laws, one of the strictest biometric privacy laws in the U.S., has led to a wave of lawsuits due to its provision allowing individuals to sue companies for mishandling biometric data without needing to prove actual harm. The amendment redefines how violations are counted, potentially reducing financial exposure for businesses by treating repeated unauthorized data collections as a single violation. While this may slow the tide of lawsuits, it could also spark mor ..read more

Time to Review Severance Agreement Employers who have not already done so should comprehensively review their past and present severance agreements to ensure that any non-disparagement and confidentiality clauses contained therein do not run afoul of the National Labor Relations Board’s ruling in a February 2023 case called McLaren Macomb, in which the NLRB significantly—and retroactively—restricted employers’ rights to include such clauses. Referring to a provision of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) that protects employees’ rights to “engage in protected, concerted activities to add ..read more

Chicago Paid Leave Ordinance Employers physically located within the City of Chicago need to be ready as of July 1 to implement the new Chicago Paid Leave and Paid Sick and Safe Leave Ordinance, which stipulates that covered employees can earn up to 40 hours of paid sick leave and 40 hours of other paid leave usable for any reasons per 12-month accrual period. Covered employees are those who work at least 80 hours within a 120 day period. Immigration status is irrelevant. The benefit year can be defined the same for all employees or entirely individually, and can be tied to the calendar year ..read more

AI & Content Creation Businesses using generative AI programs like ChatGPT to create any content—whether for blogs, websites or other marketing materials, and whether text, visuals, sound or video—need to ensure that they’re not inadvertently using copyrighted materials in the process. Clearly, the times they are a changing….and businesses need to adapt to the changes.  Employers should promulgate messages to their employees and contractors updating their policy manuals to ensure that communications professionals and others crafting content are aware of the risks of using AI-ge ..read more

Using Generative AI? Keep Your Secrets Businesses are finding generative AI programs like ChatGPT useful in functions from financial services to human resources. Although still in its early stages, and far from entirely reliable, the technology is evolving quickly and its tools and practices will continue to develop. The Cisco 2024 Data Privacy Benchmark study found that 79% of businesses say they’re deriving measurable value from generative AI for everything from creating documents to coding. But this use of generative AI has led to a number of cautions, mostly commonly and loudly about the ..read more

Lawmakers Amend BIPA When a class action lawsuit against the fast food chain White Castle teed up what could have been a $17 billion dollar verdict the Illinois Supreme Court decided to “respectfully suggest” that the state legislature revisit and clarify certain provisions of the Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) of 2008. That act, as originally written, held that employers who did not obtain employees’ permission when using their fingerprints or other biometric information like face scans in the course of their jobs—or who overlooked the same step if collecting similar information f ..read more

Non-Competes Now a Nonstarter This is really big news! Businesses that have entered into non-compete agreements with current or recently departed employees will need to come up with other ways of achieving the investment-protecting goals those non-competes were designed to accomplish. That’s because the Federal Trade Commission has issued a final rule, which will take after 120 days after publication in the Federal Register, that invalidates current non-competes for most workers and bans new ones for all employees ..read more

Is AI Washing Dirty? Many people have become familiar with the term “greenwashing,” referring to attempts by a company to cast its products as more environmentally friendly than they are through public relations and marketing “spin” efforts. Now comes the concept of “AI-washing,” in which companies exaggerate the degree to which or ways in which their products and services are powered by artificial intelligence, in order to gain a real or perceived competitive advantage. In addition to potentially misleading consumers and harming investors, this can break U.S. securities law, according to Ga ..read more

How Can Generative AI Assist Your Business? What is generative artificial intelligence, embedded in applications such as ChatGPT?  How could it help your business?   What pitfalls should you avoid.  What policies should you craft around it? This is no longer science fiction.  AI has become a reality and every business will be impacted by its use and application and your business must get on board with dealing with it and using it ..read more