Apple is once again dealing with a major class action, and this one could carry an unusually large price tag. According to the report, an Illinois lawsuit is seeking as much as $5,000 for each eligible user, which could add up to $32.5 billion if the full class were to prevail.
The case centers on Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act, a law designed to limit how companies collect sensitive identifiers such as faceprints, fingerprints, and voiceprints. Plaintiffs say Apple’s Photos app uses facial recognition to scan people in photo libraries, create faceprints, and store that biometric information without the written consent the law requires. The complaint also argues that because Photos can sync across Apple devices, some of that data ends up on Apple’s servers as well.
Who the lawsuit could affect
The suit is divided into three groups. One covers Illinois residents whose Apple devices placed their image into a People album at any point from Sept. 13, 2016 through today. Another includes Illinois users who had a People album labeled with their name or another identifier and used iCloud photo storage during the same period. A third applies to Illinois residents using iOS 17.6, iPadOS 17.6, or macOS Sonoma 14.6 or later, with a photo placed into a People album and at least 5,000 photos and videos stored in iCloud Photo Library, from March 25, 2025 through today.
Apple has pushed back and asked for the case to be dismissed. The company says its Photos privacy protections comply with Illinois law and argues that the raw biometric information cannot be used to reconstruct a face or identify a person. Apple also says facial recognition happens locally on each device rather than being centrally processed, and that what gets shared across devices are only labels, not the underlying biometric data. According to the report, the lawsuit was first filed in March and is still moving forward.
Source: lifehacker.com
