YouTube Class Action Claims Platform Illegally Captures, Stores Facial Scans in Illinois

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A proposed class action alleges YouTube has run afoul of an Illinois biometric privacy law by capturing and storing scans of consumers’ faces by way of its “Face Blur” tool, which allows uploaders to select and obscure the faces that appear in a video. 

The 27-page complaint claims that YouTube, through the “Face Blur” tool, captures and stores images of consumers’ facial geometries, which in Illinois are considered protected biometric information, without providing requisite disclosures or obtaining consent. The world’s largest video-sharing platform has also failed to post a publicly available retention schedule outlining when the data will be destroyed, the suit alleges. 

The case accuses YouTube and parent company Google of violating the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). 

According to the suit, YouTube also unlawfully captures and stores biometric identifiers through its auto-generating thumbnail tool, which scans an uploaded video to identify facial expressions therein. The purpose of this, the case says, is to attract the most clicks and views through the use of thumbnail images containing faces with more expression. 

“In doing so, Defendants capture and store biometric identifiers or information in the form of faceprints without providing notice or obtaining legally mandated consent from the individual’s whose biometric identifiers or information is captured, in violation of BIPA. Nor do they a post publicly available retention schedule and guidelines for permanently destroying the biometric identifiers of Plaintiff and the Class, as mandated by BIPA.” 

Per the case, YouTube’s “Face Blur” tool relies on state-of-the-art facial recognition technology to scan videos, locate human faces and create and store scans of face geometry. When the “Face Blur” tool is used, YouTube assigns each detected face a “faceID,” which is used to match the specific facial geometry captured and stored on YouTube’s servers, the suit explains. When a user selects a “faceID,” YouTube will blur any matching facial geometry found on its servers, the filing says. 

Although it appears that YouTube stores detected faces for only four hours, given that each face on the company’s servers has an “expiry date within a few hours of running the face detection,” YouTube and Google “are actually storing the scan of face geometry for a longer period of time, and possibly permanently,” the filing claims. This is evidenced by the fact that when the “Face Blur” tool is run more than once on the same video, the previously stored result is provided to the user without actually rerunning the tool, the lawsuit relays. 

“Consequently, Defendants permanently store scans of face geometry or biometric information so that YouTube users do not need to re-run the ‘Face Blur’ tool,” the case claims. 

The suit looks to cover all Illinois residents who had their faceprints or face templates collected, captured, received or otherwise obtained by YouTube and Google through YouTube. 

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