Rivera v Google (Google Photos BIPA settlement, USD 100 million)

USD 100M

Settlement fund, approved 28 September 2022

Cook County final approval

~USD 95

Payment per approved claimant

Settlement administrator

2016

Year the first complaint was filed

N.D. Ill. docket

What happened?

Google Photos sorts the people in a user's library by computing a face template for every face it detects and clustering matching faces. In March 2016 two Illinois residents sued, including one who had never used Google Photos but whose face appeared in another user's uploads. They argued that computing a face template without informed written consent, and without a retention policy, violated BIPA. Google argued the templates were not biometric identifiers because they were derived from photographs, which BIPA excludes.

1. 2016-03

   Complaint filed

   Rivera and Weiss sue in the Northern District of Illinois.

2. 2017-02

   Motion to dismiss denied

   Court holds face templates can be biometric identifiers even if derived from photos.

3. 2018-12-29

   Dismissed on standing

   District court finds no concrete injury for federal jurisdiction.

4. 2019

   Refiled in state court

   Claims brought in Cook County, where Rosenbach removes the injury requirement.

5. 2022-06

   Settlement announced

   USD 100 million fund for Illinois users.

6. 2022-09-28

   Final approval

   Cook County judge approves the settlement.

What did the courts decide?

The 2017 ruling denying Google's motion to dismiss was an early and influential holding that a face template is a scan of face geometry under BIPA even when the input is a photograph rather than an in-person scan. The 2018 dismissal turned on federal standing: the court found that Google's retention of templates, without more, was not a concrete injury. After Rosenbach v Six Flags confirmed in January 2019 that BIPA plaintiffs need no actual injury in Illinois courts, the plaintiffs refiled in state court, where the case settled.

Why does it matter for face search?

• It confirmed that face grouping in a consumer photo product is biometric collection, the same operation a face search engine performs at web scale.
• The photograph exclusion in BIPA does not cover templates computed from photographs, a point every face search engine must reckon with for Illinois users.
• Together with the Facebook settlement, it set the price range for BIPA class settlements before the 2024 amendment limited accrual.

What happened next?

Google had already disabled face grouping by default in Illinois and Texas; the settlement required it to tell Illinois users how the feature works and let them choose. Google later settled a parallel Texas action over face and voice data for USD 1.375 billion in May 2025 under the Texas statute (see Texas CUBI). Illinois amended BIPA in August 2024 to count one violation per person per method of collection, reducing the exposure that produced settlements of this size.