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COOK COUNTY RECORD

Friday, March 29, 2024

Class action: ID verification tech firm FaceTec wrongly scanned faces of users of dating apps, other services

Lawsuits
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Pixabay/Jan Vašek

A new class action lawsuit accuses FaceTec, a company that provides identity verification services for dating apps and other online services, of violating Illinois' biometric privacy law in the way the company uses facial recognition as part of its verification process.

Illinois residents Laura Murphy and Mark Gasper filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of themselves and potentially many thousands of others against FaceTec. The complaint filed in Cook County Circuit Court on Dec. 13 accuses FaceTec of violating the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) for alleged improper facial recognition used for verification services.

FaceTec, founded in 2013, describes itself as a world leader in 3D "real-time" facial scanning. The company has provided face scanning software and services used by dating app Tinder and a wide variety of other online services to verify the identity of their users.

During such an ID verification session, FaceTec observes various perspectives and distortions to reverse engineer a so-called 3D face map. The company says its patented human authentication software provides so-called intuitive 3D biometrics.

FaceTec becomes the latest among thousands of companies from across the spectrum of industries facing similar biometric class action lawsuits in courts in Illinois, accusing the companies of improper scans of faces, fingerprints and other biometrics.

This most recent lawsuit contends FaceTec violated BIPA law by allegedly failing to obtain consent from customers, and by allegedly failing to provide BIPA law notices explaining the need to scan visitor faces and how the company might use the stored facial scans, before scanning customers' faces.

According to the complaint, Murphy underwent a profile-verification process in September with one of FaceTec's dating app clients. During the verification process, Murphy submitted a video selfie of her face.

Allegedly without her knowledge, facial geometry was scanned in order to verify that she was in fact, a live person. She was informed that her identity and dating profile was verified. The system then allegedly used the image to extract and store unique biometric data.

Mark Gasper allegedly underwent the same verification process in August. His profile on the dating application included multiple pictures of his face. Like Murphy, Gasper also submitted a video selfie for verification and was informed his identity had been verified.

The complaint does not identify which dating app Murphy, Gasper or other plaintiffs may have used at the time FaceTec's program allegedly scanned their faces to verify their identity. The lawsuit does not name any of FaceTec's clients as defendants.

Separate BIPA-related class actions, however, have been filed against Tinder, specifically, and other app operators over similar face scans.

Plaintiffs Gasper and Murphy contend in their complaint that they were unaware the app was using biometric scanning software. As the basis for the class action lawsuit, under the BIPA law, FaceTec was allegedly first required to obtain consent and provide users with notices before taking or scanning any photo.

FaceTec allegedly did not comply with BIPA law. Further, the suit contends, FaceTec profited through the use of the biometric identifiers it captured as the clients paid for the service.

This class action lawsuit is just one of the latest such lawsuit reflecting a continuously growing wave of BIPA-related litigation. And like so many of the others, it carries the potential of massive payouts.

The plaintiffs are demanding a trial by jury, seeking damages of $1,000 to $5,000 per violation, as allowed by the BIPA law, plus attorney feels and court costs.

Under the law, a business like FaceTec could face damages potentially amounting to many millions of dollars or more for these type of cases, as individual violations quickly multiply across thousands of users annually.

As a result of such risk, many companies have chosen to settle out of court. Facebook and Google, for instance, famously opted to pay $650 million and $100 million, respectively, to end class action lawsuits accusing them of improperly scanning people's faces in photos uploaded to their photo and media sharing platforms.

A recent federal jury verdict also reflected the realithy of that risk. That jury ordered freight rail operator BNSF to pay $238 million to a group of about 45,000 truck drivers who claimed the company improperly required the truckers to scan their fingerprints to prove their identities when accessing BNSF railyards in Illinois.

The plaintiffs' attorneys in that case from the firm of McGuire Law P.C., of Chicago, have asked the judge to order BNSF to pay far more, perhaps as much as $800 million.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit against FaceTec are also represented by the same law firm, as the complaint was filed by attorneys Timothy P. Kingsbury, Colin P. Buscarini and Joseph Dunklim of McGuire Law. P.C. of Chicago.

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