On Thursday, Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act was faced with a sudden and abrupt threat, with a new amendment introduced by State Senator Terry Link that would place severe limits on the bill's power. Facebook, Google and Snapchat are all facing lawsuits for violating the act, and the proposal would have stopped those lawsuits in a single stroke.

But according to an Ars Technica report, State Senator Link has now placed the amendment on hold, after the proposal generated significant outcry in the press. It's still possible Link will reintroduce the measure, but the amendment introduced on Thursday, which was attached to a long-delayed property seizure bill, now seems to be off the table. Both the Center for Democracy and Technology and the Electronic Privacy Information Center criticized the amendment, with the former group referring to the last-minute amendment as an "undemocratic maneuver."