SAN FRANCISCO - A group of people has filed a federal lawsuit against Line Messenger and B612 for allegedly collecting facial biometrics to be used for intelligence collection for the Chinese Communist Party.
Sydney Ji, June Abe, Lee Shubert, Kira Tomlinson, Ranela Sunga, and Stefanie Bonner, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, filed a federal complaint on July 2 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against Naver Corporation, Snow Corporation, Z Holdings Corporation, Line Corporation, Line Plus Corporation and Line Euro-Americas Corporation for negligence, intrusion upon seclusion, violation of the right to privacy, violation of the California unfair competition law, violations of California false advertising law and invasion of privacy act, violation of the electronic communications privacy act, violations of the computer fraud and abuse act, violation of the Illinois biometric information privacy act and unjust enrichment.
According to the complaint, Line Messenger is a mobile messenger app akin to WhatsApp and is embedded with China-based SenseTime software development kit (“SDK”) to collects users’ biometric information such as face geometry scans.
The second app, B612, is a photo- and video-altering app targeted at younger consumers which allows users to change their appearance with various beautification filters and is also embedded with SDK. Both apps allegedly collect user data that they transmit to non-secure servers in China and Hong Kong, where, on information and belief, it is available to the Chinese Communist Party for retention in a database used for intelligence gathering and other purposes.
Plaintiffs allege this violated their privacy, and is done under false pretenses and advertising, as users do not consent to this information being collected by the apps.
Plaintiffs are represented by Jonathan M. Rotter or Glancy Prongay and Murray LLP; Amy E. Keller of DiCello Levitt Gutzler LLC; Marc E. Masters of Bird, Marella, Boxer, Wolpert, Nessim, Drooks, Lincenberg and Rhow P.C.; Marc S. Williams of Cohen Williams LLP; and Lesley E. Weaver of Bleichmar, Fonti and Auld LLP.
U.S. District Court Northern District of California case number 3:21-cv-05143-TSH