Samsung Seeks Appeal for BIPA Arbitration Order

Samsung has asked the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse a lower court’s decision to make the company pay millions in arbitration fees for claims that it has violated Illinois’s Biometric Information Privacy Act through its use of facial recognition software. The company is now arguing that claimants have not provided evidence that they had arbitration agreements with the company.

The claimants’ attorney, Deepak Gupta, told 7th Circuit Chief Judge Diane Sykes that evidence of the arbitration agreements would have been provided in the lower court if Samsung had asked for it, asserting that Samsung is now trying to “raise questions about one or two people” to cast doubt on the entire case.

Samsung was sued under BIPA because its Gallery app allegedly collected, stored, and used the facial scans of Illinois residents without their consent. This lack of transparency and appropriate permission violates BIPA’s core requirements.

Samsung’s Gallery app is the default photo and video management application on Samsung Galaxy devices. It offered a facial recognition feature designed to organize photos by identifying the people in them. This feature would analyze images within the Gallery app to extract facial characteristics. The goal was to automatically group photos of the same person together, allowing users to easily search and view pictures of specific individuals within their photo library.

The Illinois case involves over 50,000 petitioners who could be eligible for compensation. Previously, Samsung was ordered to pay over $4 million in filing fees to begin arbitration proceedings. But a 7th Circuit appeals court put a pause on the order last autumn and agreed to fast-track Samsung’s appeal of the case. At that time, Samsung was arguing that the arbitrator itself is supposed to decide which party pays for administrative fees.

Source: Reuters

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February 16, 2024 – by the FindBiometrics Editorial Team