Amazon Faces Class Action Lawsuit Over Alleged Biometric Data Collection in Photos Service
A federal judge has certified an Illinois class in the case of Hogan v. Amazon.com, Inc., a lawsuit alleging that Amazon Photos collected facial biometric data through its image recognition feature without obtaining proper consent as required by Illinois's Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). The certified class includes 339,847 Illinois-linked accounts that had image recognition enabled between October 18, 2016, and January 31, 2023. Plaintiffs claim Amazon failed to obtain written consent, explain biometric data collection, or clearly state the purpose and retention policies for such data. Amazon's Terms of Service, which did not explicitly mention terms like 'biometric identifier' or 'facial recognition,' were deemed insufficient by the court. The litigation has been ongoing for over five years, highlighting the complexities and persistence required in BIPA class actions. The court declined to certify a separate class for individuals whose faces appeared in photos uploaded by others, focusing the c...
