Current and former employees of retail giant Amazon have filed a class-action lawsuit against the company in an Illinois county court, alleging that the company made employment decisions based on genetic information obtained during the application process, Top Class Actions reported March 13.
The lawsuit alleges that a pre-employment physical examination by the company "indirectly or directly solicited, requested or required" them to disclose family medical history, in violation of the Illinois Genetic Information Privacy Act.
"Defendants chose to repeatedly disregard Illinois' genetic privacy laws by asking their employees to provide genetic information in the form of family medical history to assist the companies in making employment decisions," the lawsuit says.