Blurring a face on YouTube can violate BIPA – new lawsuit

A new biometric privacy lawsuit against Google argues that its venerable video-sharing platform YouTube stores images of people’s faces even if only for a short time when those faces are being blurred for privacy.

Google is violating the U.S. state of Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act by doing so, according to a proposed class action filed in federal court by state resident Brad Marschke.

BIPA says that businesses have to get informed consent from state residents before taking biometric information, including facial images. They must also be told how the images will be used and managed.

Marschke contends that YouTube’s Face Blur tool, employed by subscribers to obscure one or more faces before finished videos are published, shows each face in a video and asks which should be blurred.

Google/YouTube software scans those facial images and hold them for a non-zero amount of time. A story on the suit from law trade publication Law360 says the analyzed images can be stored for a few hours.

According to the lawsuit (case 3:22-cv-02022, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois), no one is being approached for their consent.

The same reportedly is true when YouTube software scrubs through videos submitted for publishing, looking for emotive faces to put in index thumbnails, or small images to entice clicks and sharing.

Displaying dynamic expressions is more likely to generate views and shares than those using random, impassive screengrabs. To make those choices, the software analyzes all faces in a video that YouTube keeps for some time

Earlier this summer, Google settled a BIPA class action involving the vendor’s Photo app for $100 million.

Article Topics

Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA)  |  biometrics  |  data privacy  |  data storage  |  face biometrics  |  Google  |  lawsuits