Snapchat has agreed to pay a $35 million settlement to resolve a lawsuit in Illinois over claims that the company was collecting private data via its filters.
Snapchat’s parent company, Snap, agreed to pay the settlement to resolve a class-action suit that claimed the photo-sharing app’s filters and lenses violated the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act by collecting data without user consent. Now state residents may get a small payout if they have used the filters in the last seven years.
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Illinois residents who may have used the filters between Nov. 17, 2015, and Aug. 23, 2022, may be eligible for a settlement cut, valued between $58 and $117, according to the Chicago Tribune. The settlement is still subject to judicial approval.
Eligible users have until Sept. 24 to submit a claim.
While Snap agreed to the settlement, it denied that it violated Illinois’s privacy laws. Snapchat filters “do not collect biometric data that can be used to identify a specific person or engage in facial identification,” Snap spokesman Peter Boogaard said, adding that any data collected by lenses or filters stay on a user’s device.
The company also incorporated additional consent forms for users in Illinois.
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“While we are confident that [Snapchat lenses] do not violate BIPA, out of an abundance of caution and as a testament to our commitment to user privacy earlier this year, we rolled out an in-app consent notice for Snapchatters in Illinois,” Boogaard said.
Illinois is one of the most stringent states when it comes to data privacy and has previously penalized Big Tech for collecting an assortment of biometric-related data sources, from fingerprints to face scans. Google agreed to pay Illinois $100 million in June over allegations that its face-grouping software in Google Photos violated BIPA. Facebook’s parent company, Meta, agreed to make a similar $650 million settlement with Illinois in 2021 over its facial recognition features.
