Putative class action suit against Microsoft, Amazon for violating biometric privacy laws dismissed by U.S. court

Illinois residents Steven Vance and Tim Janecyk, whose photos were part of the dataset, claimed the companies’ actions violated the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA).

A file photo of the Amazon and Microsoft logos | Photo Credit: AP

Two U.S. residents who claimed that Microsoft and Amazon violated the Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) by using their photos to train facial recognition software, saw their putative class actions dismissed by a Washington federal judge on Monday.

(For insights on emerging themes at the intersection of technology, business and policy, subscribe to our tech newsletter Today’s Cache.)

Microsoft and Amazon, which dominate the cloud-computing space, used IBM's 'Diversity in Faces' dataset to train their own facial recognition tools.

However, Illinois residents Steven Vance and Tim Janecyk, whose photos were part of the dataset, claimed the companies’ actions violated the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA).

The class actions reportedly fell through due to the technicalities of Microsoft's actions taking place outside Illinois.

Both Microsoft and Amazon have their headquarters in Washington and Microsoft has data centres in multiple locations. This complicates the case for Vance and Janecyk, who used their state's BIPA in their legal claims.

Amazon denied that it enjoyed any profits or benefits by using the dataset, according to a report from Biometric Update. The e-commerce company further claimed that the 'Diversity in Faces' dataset might not even include biometric information.

Vance and Janecyk have also tried to take Google and IBM to court for BIPA related complaints.