Biometric
Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA)
Collecting, storing, using, disclosing or profiting from biometric identifiers without the written notice, purpose disclosure, retention schedule and signed release the statute requires.
Pleaded in 14 of the 98 matters on this docket
Governing law
740 ILCS 14/1 et seq. — section 15(a) retention policy, 15(b) informed written consent, 15(c) no profiting, 15(d) no disclosure; damages at section 20
Damages
Section 20 provides liquidated damages of $1,000 per negligent violation or $5,000 per intentional or reckless violation, or actual damages if greater, plus fees and injunctive relief. Public Act 103-0769, effective August 2, 2024, limits accrual to a single recovery per person per collection method, overriding Cothron v. White Castle's per-scan accrual.
Limitations period
Five years for all BIPA claims, Tims v. Black Horse Carriers, 2023 IL 127801.
Reference material about publicly available law, current as of the date this file was compiled. It is not legal advice and it does not describe anyone’s particular situation. Statutes and limitations periods vary by jurisdiction and change.
Matters pleading this claim
Amer v. ElevenLabs
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (Eastern Division) · 1:26-cv-05437
ElevenLabs text-to-speech and voice-cloning foundation models allegedly trained on scraped broadcast, podcast and audiobook recordings
Filed 2026-05-11 · Class Action
ActiveVelazquez v. NCS Pearson
Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois · 2022-CH-00280
Pearson VUE palm-vein scanning at physical testing centers and OnVUE remote-proctoring facial comparison technology
Filed 2022-01-13 · Class Action
SettledMcGoveran v. AWS & Pindrop
U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware; affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit · 1:20-cv-01399 (D. Del.); No. 24-3215 (3d Cir.)
Pindrop voice-biometric caller authentication software running on Amazon Connect / AWS call-center infrastructure used by John Hancock
Filed 2020-10-16 · Class Action
DismissedACLU v. Clearview AI
Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois
Clearview AI faceprint database compiled from images scraped from social media and the public web
Filed 2020-05-28 · Individual Action
SettledCothron v. White Castle
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (certified question answered by the Supreme Court of Illinois) · 1:19-cv-00382
Fingerprint-scan employee timekeeping and system-authentication terminals
Filed 2018-12 · Class Action
SettledPatel v. Facebook
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California · 3:15-cv-03747
Facebook 'Tag Suggestions' facial recognition and face template creation
Filed 2015-04-21 · Class Action
SettledIn re Clearview AI
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (Eastern Division) · 1:21-cv-00135
Clearview AI facial recognition search engine built on approximately 50 billion images scraped from the public internet
Filing date not established · Class Action
On AppealRivera v. Google
Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois (Chancery Division) · 2019-CH-00990
Google Photos face grouping / face template creation
Filing date not established · Class Action
SettledVance v. Microsoft
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington · 2:20-cv-01082 (C20-1082JLR)
IBM 'Diversity in Faces' research dataset of ~1 million annotated Flickr face images, distributed free for non-commercial bias research
Filing date not established · Class Action
DismissedVance v. Amazon
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington · 2:20-cv-01084 (C20-1084JLR)
IBM 'Diversity in Faces' research dataset derived from Flickr Creative Commons images
Filing date not established · Class Action
DismissedSosa v. Onfido
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois · 1:20-cv-04247
Onfido identity-verification SDK embedded in third-party apps (including the OfferUp marketplace), which extracted facial geometry from a selfie and a government ID photo
Filing date not established · Class Action
SettledVeiga v. Respondus
Circuit Court of DuPage County, Illinois
Respondus Monitor AI remote exam proctoring — webcam-based facial detection and behavior monitoring of students during online exams
Filing date not established · Class Action
SettledUnconfirmedRogers v. BNSF
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois · 1:19-cv-03083 (removed from Cook County No. 2019-CH-04393)
Remote-operated automated gate systems using fingerprint scanning to verify truck drivers entering BNSF intermodal facilities (vendor-operated on BNSF's behalf)
Filing date not established · Class Action
SettledZellmer v. Meta
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California; affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit · 3:18-cv-01880-JD (N.D. Cal.); No. 22-16925 (9th Cir.)
Facebook 'face signatures' generated from uploaded photos for Tag Suggestions, including images of people who never had a Facebook account
Filing date not established · Class Action
Dismissed