A federal judge has certified a class action against Amazon over allegations that its Photos service collected facial biometric data without the consent required under Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA).
The federal court lawsuit, Hogan v. Amazon.com, Inc., centers on Amazon’s compliance with BIPA’s informed consent requirements.
Amazon Photos obtains face biometric data with its image recognition feature, according to the complaint, but does not get written consent, or explain that biometric data is being collected or state its associated purpose and data retention policy.
Attorneys with Wexler Boley & Elgersma LLP lead the certified class, which covers Illinois residents whose faces were processed in photographs uploaded to their own Amazon Photos accounts between October 18, 2016 and January 31, 2023.
Amazon identified 339,847 Illinois-linked accounts with image recognition enabled during that period, although not all necessarily qualify for the class.