A federal judge in Delaware will not block a lawsuit filed in Illinois state court against Amazon Web Services (AWS), which accuses the company of collecting voice biometrics without consent in violation of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA).
A report from Law360.com says U.S. Circuit Judge Stephanos Bibas denied Amazon’s request to dismiss the Illinois suit and bar some of the original plaintiffs from bringing claims under Section 15(b) of BIPA. Bibas cited the Anti-Injunction Act as preventing him from ruling.
Bibas previously ruled on a federal biometric privacy class action against AWS, in which plaintiffs alleged Amazon illegally extracted “voiceprints” to verify caller identities through voice biometrics at call centers run by the firm John Hancock. That case was dismissed because some plaintiffs lacked standing, in that they never proved they underwent voice authentication.
Bibas found there was no evidence Amazon’s cloud-based call center service collected customer voice data, because AWS does not collect biometrics – that’s done by Pindrop. Amazon, Bibas wrote, “neither authenticates voices, nor processes voiceprints or any voice data. It also never stored any voiceprints on its servers.”
In a summary judgment, he also pointed out that since the networked nature of authentication services means no voiceprints or voice biometrics were stored in Illinois, the class action was technically beyond the scope of BIPA.
However, despite Amazon’s argument that the federal case undermines the state suit, the judge noted that the state suit was still valid, because “Illinois courts apply a much different standard for standing.”
“The issues presented are not the same, plus the parties are different, and Amazon has failed to show that equity favors granting it an injunction. So I deny the motion to enjoin the state court case.”
Millions in settlements for firms tired of being hit with BIPA
BIPA continues to be a lucrative legal pump for class actions, with a new $4 million settlement in a class action targeting selfie biometrics firm Incode Technologies.
A court notice says that, “if you were in Illinois and uploaded a selfie and a photo ID to a mobile app or website for identity verification performed by Incode Technologies, Inc. between November 11, 2018 and August 5, 2024, you may be able to claim a payment from a class action settlement.
Incode is accused of failing to satisfy BIPA’s consent and disclosure requirements before using its facial recognition software to collect and store facial geometry.
While the court has yet to decide whether or not Incode (referred to in the notice as Defender) violated BIPA, the proposed settlement would award those who submit valid claims “an equal, or pro rata, share of the $4,000,000 fund that Defendant agreed to create for Class Members, after all notice and administration costs, incentive awards, and attorneys’ fees have been paid.”
In the end, however, the payout is not that grand: individual payments are estimated to be between $65 and $240.
Amazon, Lytx settle to shut down biometric data privacy lawsuits
BIPA has yielded two other recent settlements over nonconsensual collection of biometric data.
Law360 says a gamer’s mom has reached a settlement with Amazon to end a proposed class action accusing AWS of collecting face biometrics of teenagers playing the NBA 2K video game.
The class action, filed in a Washington federal court, says the company collects biometrics for in-game features without user consent. The plaintiff’s son is a minor, and she therefore argues he could not have given consent even if he had wanted to. The terms of the settlement have not been disclosed.
Lytx, a San Diego-based company that provides telematics and in-cab camera systems, has reached a $4.25 million settlement in a federal lawsuit over claims it violated BIPA – although, as FreeightWaves reports, it “denies all of the claims and allegations.”
The settlement umbrella includes anybody who drove a vehicle in Illinois equipped with Lytx’s DriveCamEvent Recorder tech, and for whom machine vision and AI was used to predict distracted driving behaviors. DriveCam scans a driver’s face geometry and feeds biometric data points into algorithms. The BIPA suit says Lytx violated rules around data retention and informed consent, calling it illegal “constant AI surveillance.”
Attorneys estimate a class size of about 85,00 – 25,000 Illinois residents and 60,000 non-Illinois residents.
A statement from Lytx says “BIPA litigation has become an immense and costly distraction for companies doing business in the region.”
Clearview tries to cut unusual deal in settling suit
Meanwhile, Clearview AI is trying to save itself, by giving away just under a quarter stake in the facial recognition firm. Chris Burt has more details on this case over here.
Article Topics
Amazon | Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) | data privacy | data protection | Incode | lawsuits