Snap, the parent company of photo-sharing platform Snapchat, has reached a $35 million settlement with the state of Illinois in the US in a class-action lawsuit over illegal user data collection.
The lawsuit alleged that Snapchat’s filters and lenses violated the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA).
The company stored “biometric data without users’ consent,” IANS reported from SanFrancisco.
People who used lenses and filters between November 17, 2015, and today are eligible for a cut of the settlement, “estimated to be between $58 and $117,” the report said late on Tuesday.
The state law requires companies to tell people in writing why their biometric data is being collected and how long it will be kept.
A company spokesperson, however, said that Snapchat lenses “do not collect biometric data that can be used to identify a specific person, or engage in facial identification.”