Match Group, the parent company of the Latino dating app Chispa, is facing a class action lawsuit for allegedly improperly scanning the faces of people who registered to use Chispa.
The lawsuit is one of three virtually identical claims filed by the same legal team against Match, accusing them over how they handled the so-called biometric information of those using their dating apps. Other apps targeted included Match's BLK and Hinge apps.
Like the other lawsuits, the Chispa complaint alleges that Match Group improperly scanned the faces of people who registered to use Chispa, creating a biometric template of the user's face to verify their identity. It further accuses the company of collecting, storing, using, and disseminating its users' biometric data to enhance its online dating platform and sharing this data with third-party affiliates.
The lawsuit asserts such scans amount to violations of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), because Match allegedly did not first secure consent or provide notices before conducting the face scans.
The lawsuit seeks potentially huge damages under BIPA for these supposed violations. The law permits plaintiffs to demand damages of $1,000-$5,000 per violation. The Illinois Supreme Court has interpreted the BIPA law to define individual violations as each time a user's biometrics are scanned over a period of the preceding five years, not just the first time.
The plaintiffs seek to expand the lawsuit to include every Illinois resident who used the Chispa app in the past five years.
The lawsuit does not estimate how many people could be included in the class action.
Plaintiffs are represented by attorneys Michael L. Fradin, of Skokie; and James L. Simon, of Independence, Ohio.