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Illinois residents coining it on biometric privacy settlements
RICHARD WEINER
Technology for Lawyers
Published: September 29, 2023
A long, long time ago––dozens of tech generations ago (2008)––the state of Illinois passed one of the most restrictive privacy acts in the country.
It is the Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), and it has snared millions for plaintiffs in class action lawsuits from the largest data collection companies.
*”Data collection companies” is my new name for what the tech press calls “Big Tech.”
Biometrics, in this context, concerns “the measurement and analysis of unique physical… characteristics… especially as a means of verifying personal identity. (Miriam-Webster)”
Biometrics on phones are personal data like retinal scans, facial recognition, fingerprints, etc.
The latest big class action suit transferring cash into the state’s residents from these companies was a $68.5 million fine that Meta just agreed to pay to the state over personal data scraped from Instagrammers in a program that was discontinued in 2021.
Insta had used its facial recognition tech to collect and store data without user informed consent, contra to BIPA Meta denied they were doing this, but $40 million to them is like a quarter to us, so why not settle?
Plus Insta doesn’t facially recognize anymore, so they say.
In the settlement docs, the plaintiff’s attorneys estimated that up to 4 million Illinois residents had their biometric images grabbed by the app.
That settlement joined a list of like settlements against companies for stealing personal biometric data.
In 2016, Snapchat settled a class action BIPA suit for $35 million that the plaintiffs had filed claiming that certain Snapchat features collected biometrical info without permission or knowledge.
In 2020, Facebook, also owned by Meta, settled a class action BIPA suit for $650 million in a case again alleging that the company collected face biometrics.
And in 2022, Google (Alphabet) made more class action lawyers rich when they settled a 2016 suit for the nice round number of $100 million alleging that Google’s face grouping feature in Google Photos also collected user biometric without their knowing consent.
See a pattern?
It’s OK. I’m sure they’ve stopped doing that.
Thanks as always to Lexology and Proskaur for doing the actual reporting on this.