Alleged Misuse of OkCupid User Photos Focus of Biometric Data Lawsuit
Class Action Lawsuit Filed On Behalf of All Illinois Residents Whose Biometric Information or Biometric Identifiers, In the Form of Scans of Facial Geometry, Was Collected, Used, or Stored by Clarifai.
On March 21, 2022, a class action complaint was filed in federal court against Clarifai, Inc. regarding “the surreptitious misappropriation and misuse of potentially hundreds of thousands of Illinois residents’ biometric information by a tech startup named Clarifai.”
According to the class action complaint, OkCupid user photos were provided to Clarifai, and “Clarifai used those images to train or refine its facial recognition software, a process that necessarily extracts biometric data in the form of maps of facial geometry.”
The complaint alleges that “Clarifai’s brazen disregard for individual privacy rights violates Illinoisans’ rights under [the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”)], which was specifically designed to protect Illinois residents from this kind of underhanded behavior.”
According to the lawsuit, “[i]n order to give Clarifai a leg up over the competition, thereby hedging the bet he made when investing in Clarifai, Corazon’s co-founder[,] Max Krohn[,] surreptitiously provided OkCupid’s database of user photographs to Clarifai.”
Clarfai, allegedly, “mined this enormous cache of photographs for OkCupid users’ biometric data and used it to improve its tools’ capabilities,” and “OkCupid users were given neither notice nor any opportunity to consent to Clarifai’s collection, use, and storage of their biometric identifiers.”
Do You Believe Your Biometric Information May Have Been Illegally Collected, Stored, Used, Disclosed, Transmitted Or Disseminated?
Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”) provides a private right of action in an Illinois state circuit court, or as a supplemental claim in federal district court, against an offending party. Among other relief, BIPA provides for liquidated damages of $1,000 or actual damages, whichever is greater, against a private entity that negligently violates a provision of BIPA, as well as liquidated damages of $5,000 or actual damages, whichever is greater, against a private entity that intentionally or recklessly violates a provision of BIPA.
If you believe your biometric data has been illegally collected, stored, used, disclosed, transmitted or disseminated, please contact Kehoe Law Firm, P.C., Michael Yarnoff, Esq., (215) 792-6676, Ext. 804, [email protected], [email protected], for a free, confidential consultation and no-obligation evaluation of potential legal claims.
