Judge largely denies Apple summary judgment in BIPA biometric class action
Chief Judge Rosenstengel's ruling in Doe v. Apple (S.D. Ill.) keeps alive the Illinois BIPA class action over the Photos app's use of facial recognition, with implications for biometric-data litigation generally.
A federal judge in the Southern District of Illinois has largely denied summary judgment to Apple Inc. in Doe v. Apple Inc., No. 3:20-cv-00421-NJR, the long-running putative class action under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act that concerns the company's Photos app and the facial-recognition and related biometric processing it performs on users' images. Chief Judge Nancy J. Rosenstengel issued the ruling.
The significance for major-firm clients is the continued viability of BIPA class actions targeting the collection, scanning, and retention of facial data embedded in consumer applications, and the court's treatment of what constitutes a biometric identifier and of a user's "control" over it. Counsel representing consumer-technology, social-media, and device clients should expect the decision to be examined in related actions and in class-certification and damages phases of similar suits, and should assess whether consent, retention, and disclosure practices withstand a summary-judgment challenge on comparable facts.
Counsel should watch the entry of the written opinion and any renewed motion practice, settlement activity, or appellate filings, and should note that the specific holdings are reported here via a law-firm client alert rather than the court's own text, so the reasoning should be confirmed against the docket before being relied upon.