Class Action Claims Ring Captures Facial Scans of Customers’ Visitors Without Consent

New to ClassAction.org? Read our Newswire Disclaimer

A proposed class action claims Ring LLC has unlawfully collected and stored biometric information captured through its video doorbells and home security cameras without the consent of those who appear in the videos.

Alleging violations of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), the 20-page case out of Washington charges Ring has been “capturing and using the facial geography of individuals appearing in these videos for years,” including visitors to Ring owners’ homes, ostensibly to build an “advanced system of facial recognition” to be used by law enforcement.

The lawsuit alleges, however, that Ring failed to obtain the informed written consent of those who appear in the video feeds of homeowners’ “smart” doorbells and “Stick Up Cams” before collecting and storing their facial scans, known otherwise as “biometric identifiers.” The plaintiff says she does not have, and has never had, an account or any other contractual relationship with Ring, nor has ever used any of the company’s products, yet has appeared in video footage accessed and used by the defendant after visiting several Illinois homes equipped with the defendant’s cameras.

According to the suit, Ring, which was purchased by Amazon in early 2018 for more than $1 billion, sells video doorbells and security cameras that allow homeowners to remotely communicate with visitors from their smart devices. When a visitor triggers the doorbell’s motion detector or presses the doorbell, the homeowner can view high-definition, live video footage of the visitor, and has the option to store and save the footage, the case explains.

Similarly, Ring’s “Stick Up Cams,” which can be placed inside or outside a home, can capture live video and allow for two-way voice communication between a homeowner and visitors, per the lawsuit.

In November 2018, Ring filed patent application material that describes a facial recognition system capable of scanning the faces of individuals who appear in Ring cameras and matching them with a photo database of “suspicious” people, the lawsuit says. Upon a match, the person’s face would be automatically sent to law enforcement, the case relays, adding that Ring anticipates the software will be able to identify even partially obscured faces.

According to the suit, recent concerns over Ring’s “subpar security and privacy practices” have shed light on the company’s practice of granting employees “essentially unfettered access” to video footage captured through customers’ Ring cameras. The footage, the lawsuit alleges, is stored in unencrypted form and used to bolster Ring’s facial recognition technology.

Although Ring has responded to these allegations by stating it has annotated certain videos from customers who shared them on a related Ring app and consented to the company’s use of the footage, the lawsuit argues Ring “never sought—or received—permission” from homeowners’ visitors or other non-customer third parties who appeared in the videos and whose biometric information was collected and used by the company.

Biometrics, such as fingerprints or scans of individuals’ facial geometries, are unlike other identifiers in that they are biologically unique to a person and cannot be changed if compromised, the case states. Given the sensitive nature of biometric data, the Illinois legislature enacted the BIPA in order to prevent entities such as Ring from collecting and storing consumers’ biometrics unless they first:

According to the lawsuit, Ring has created, collected and stored millions of “face templates”—i.e. “highly detailed” geometric maps of individuals’ faces—from customers’ video footage, and used such to develop its facial recognition software, without adhering to the BIPA’s notice requirements. 

“Specifically, Ring has assigned teams to manually tag individuals appearing in this video footage so that its software can capture biometric data from the video, including the tagged individual’s facial geography, and use it to bolster its own facial recognition technology,” the case alleges. “Ring does so without seeking or receiving consent of every individual appearing in this video footage.”

The lawsuit alleges proposed class members—Illinois residents whose biometric identifiers, including scans of facial geometry, were collected, captured, received or otherwise obtained by Ring from videos or other visual media captured by a Ring camera—are entitled to statutory damages as a result of Ring’s alleged privacy violations.

Get class action lawsuit news sent to your inbox – sign up for ClassAction.org’s newsletter here.