Illinois residents who used Lenses or Filters features through the massively popular social media platform SnapChat will have a chance to grab a bit of money from a settlement to end a class action lawsuit brought under Illinois’ biometrics privacy law.
Earlier this month, a DuPage County judge granted an early nod to a $35 million settlement agreed to by Snap Inc., the parent company of the SnapChat service.
Under the deal, the lawyers who filed the lawsuit are expected to receive about $12 million in fees, to be paid from the total settlement fund. The lawsuit was filed and led by attorneys Gary M. Klinger and Jonathan B. Cohen, of the firm of Milberg Coleman Bryson Phillips Grossman, of Chicago and St. Petersburg, Florida.
Jonathan Cohen
| Milberg Coleman
It is not known yet how much an estimated 3.8 million SnapChat users from Illinois might actually get from the deal. That per person amount will be determined based on how many Illinois residents file eligible claims for a cut of the settlement fund.
However, SnapChat users who benefit from the settlement could expect to receive between $58-$117 each, according to a brief filed in support of the settlement deal.
Illinois SnapChat users have until Nov. 5 to submit a claim, according to settlement court documents.
A DuPage County judge is expected to consider granting final approval to the settlement at a hearing currently scheduled for Nov. 17.
The settlement would end a class action lawsuit that has been pending since 2020. At that time, the Milberg Coleman lawyers filed suit against Snap in downstate Williamson County.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of named plaintiffs Brianna Boone, Ashley McClinton, Erin Rentfro, and Rentfro’s minor child, identified as K.F.C.
The lawsuit claims Snap improperly scanned and stored images of the facial geometry of SnapChat users using the app’s Lenses photo filter. The feature allows users to augment their images, known as Snaps, to add a variety of effects, frames and filters.
The lawsuit claims the app captures users’ facial images without their consent, and without notifying them that their images were being captured.
The lawsuit asserts those alleged failures by Snap violate the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act.
Snap became just one of thousands of companies targeted under the BIPA law since 2015 under a blitz of class action lawsuits. The bulk of the lawsuits have targeted employers, accusing them of improperly requiring workers to scan their fingerprints or other so-called biometric identifiers when punching the clock to begin or end work shifts, or to access secure areas in the workplace.
But a significant and growing share of the lawsuits have also taken aim at big tech companies, including Facebook and Google.
The threat from such lawsuits is massive. Under the law, plaintiffs can demand damages of $1,000-$5,000 per violation. The law has been interpreted to define individual violations as each time a company’s technology scans a user’s unique biometric identifiers, which can include their facial geometry.
When multiplied across thousands or even millions of users, the potential damages could easily rise into the many millions or even billions of dollars.
Faced with such risk, many companies have opted simply to settle, rather than risk such massive losses at trial. Facebook, for instance, opted to settle BIPA-related claims against them for $650 million, while Google agreed to settle the class action against them for $100 million.
The risk to Snap is also potentially huge.
It is unknown at this point how the settlement in DuPage County court might affect the other class action lawsuit against Snap in Chicago federal court.
However, it is possible that anyone who claims a cut of the DuPage County settlement could forfeit their rights to any other BIPA-related settlements against Snap.
Snap fought the case now being settled in DuPage County for nearly two years. They initially secured a win in federal court in southern Illinois in 2021. At that point, a federal judge determined SnapChat’s user agreement terms dictated claims brought by minor K.F.C., belonged in arbitration.
That dismissal, however, was overturned on appeal in March 2022, when judges on the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals said an arbitrator must decide if the contract K.F.C. signed when she signed up for SnapChat is actually legally enforceable.
Snap has continued to deny all of the accusations in the lawsuits. But faced with continued legal proceedings, Snap opted to pay $35 million to settle the case. The case was then brought to DuPage County Circuit Court in early August for the purposes of settlement.
Snap has been represented in the case by attorney Elizabeth B. Herrington, and others with the firm of Morgan Lewis & Bockius, of Chicago.