Burns Charest filed suit against the creators of the hit social media app TikTok for the illegal use and storage of biometric data of its users. Plaintiffs allege that Tiktok, Inc. and ByteDance, Inc. capture, store, and share biometric information, obtained from scanning users faces without their consent, as part of their age identifer and face stickers features. The use of biometrics without a written release in a user agreement is a violation of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”). TikTok’s users, many of whom are minors, have never given consent for the use of biometric information and could be at risk of idenity theft from the use of their data as a security identifier. 

More news coverage of the litigation can be found here.