Snap agrees to $35 million settlement over privacy lawsuit

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

There is a chance thatSnapchat users in Illinois could be eligible for aPayout. The Chicago Tribune reported that the state of Illinois reached a $35 million settlement with the company.

The state's Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) is the subject of a lawsuit. Illinois has some of the strictest laws when it comes to collecting residents' fingerprints, irises, and face scans. A state law requires companies to tell people in writing why their data is being collected and how long it will be kept, as well as prohibiting the sale and transfer of the data.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Illinois residents who used glasses between November 17th, 2015, and now may be eligible for a cut of the settlement. Users who think they might be eligible have until September 24th to submit a claim.

Pete Boogaard, a spokesman for the company, denied that it violated BIPA and said that the data it collected was not used to identify a specific person. The data used by lens is kept on a user's mobile device and not sent to the server.

While we are confident that 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 forSnapchatters in Illinois

Illinois residents have previously sued platforms for collecting their data. A judge gave final approval to a $92 million settlement in a case in which TikTok is accused of violating Illinois law. BIPA was allegedly violated by the face grouping feature in the photo service. The BIPA class action lawsuit will be settled in 2021.

The tech giant is accused of violating California law and user privacy through location tracking. Facebook users say the company used their addresses to target ads after they disabled location services. Meta wouldn't say anything about the case.