String Of Numbers Or Identifier: The Ninth Circuit Weighs In On BIPA’s Application To Non-Users

In June, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed a social media company’s summary judgment win on BIPA claims, in a sophisticated ruling providing a plausible path forward for technology companies and others offering facial matching services. The case involved a social media platform’s “tag suggestion” feature, which would seek to identify other users on the social media platform that appear in an uploaded photo. According to the lawsuit, the feature worked by comparing the faces in the uploaded photos against known photos of the platform’s users.

As a reminder, BIPA is an Illinois law regulating when and how organizations collect and use biometric information about Illinois residents. Texas and Washington each have a similar law in place, and other state privacy laws coming on the books at times seek to include biometric information in their definitions. So, privacy…