SPRINGFIELD (LN) — U.S. District Judge Nancy J. Rosenstengel of the Southern District of Illinois granted class certification on June 5, 2026, in a major Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act lawsuit against Apple Inc.
The ruling clears the path for trial on claims that Apple collected and stored faceprints—scans of face geometry—without providing required disclosures or obtaining written consent, as mandated by BIPA.
Plaintiffs allege that Apple’s Photos app, pre-installed on its devices, automatically uses facial recognition technology to scan individual face geometries and create a unique “faceprint” for each person detected in the user’s photo library.
Beginning in 2017, Apple began syncing photographs and associated data across multiple devices logged into iCloud. As of July 29, 2024, Apple began storing users’ faceprints directly to its servers for users with at least 5,000 assets and 10 gigabytes of iCloud storage.
Apple estimated that approximately 2.6 million Illinois users received the July 2024 software update and met the criteria for having their faceprints stored on Apple’s servers.
BIPA provides for damages of $1,000 for each negligent violation and $5,000 for each intentional or reckless violation. A 2024 amendment to the statute limits liability to a single violation per person for the same method of collection. With a class of approximately 10 million, total exposure could reach $50 billion if violations are deemed intentional or reckless.
The court certified three classes:
The Local Device Class includes every Illinois citizen whose Apple device put a photograph of that citizen into a People album between September 13, 2016, and the present. The source indicates this class comprises approximately 6.5 million members.
The iCloud Subclass covers Illinois citizens who had an Apple Device with a People album tagged with that citizen’s name or other identifier, and had an iCloud account enabled for photo storage, during the same period. This class comprises approximately 1 million members.
The iCloud Faceprint Subclass includes users with specific storage and asset thresholds who used the feature between March 25, 2025, and the present. This class comprises as many as 2.6 million members.
Apple argued that individualized inquiries into whether users labeled their People albums with personal identifying information would defeat class certification. The court rejected that argument, finding that whether Apple collected biometric data capable of identifying users is a common question resolvable on a classwide basis.
The court also dismissed Apple’s concerns about proving where users were located when they took photos, noting that Apple possesses user location data and that individual location questions can be addressed at the damages stage if liability is established.
Schlichter Bogard LLP and Montroy Law Offices, LLC were appointed as class counsel.