Confirm ID, an online identity verification service for the Adult Friend Finder site, is facing a class-action lawsuit.
Named plaintiff, Ryan Murphy, an Illinois resident, has accused ConfirmID of unlawfully collecting, storing, and using users' biometric data.
According to the complaint, users were required to upload a state-issued identification photo and a real-time selfie during registration. Confirm ID would then create a biometric template from the selfie and compare it with the ID photo to verify identity.
The complaint asserts ConfirmID scanned Murphy's photo, and stored a template of his identifying facial geometry, without his knowledge or consent, and without providing notice. According to the complaint, this violated the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA.)
The complaint argues that the company's practices expose users to serious and irreversible privacy risks.
The lawsuit filed on Feb. 20 in Sacramento federal court.
While filed under an Illinois law, the complaint asserts the lawsuit should be tried in California federal court because ConfirmID is based in California, and the alleged scans took place in California, no matter where AdultFriendFinder users are located.
The lawsuit seeks to expand the action to include all Illinois residents whose faces were allegedly similarly scanned by ConfirmID in the past five years.
The lawsuit seeks damages of $1,000-$5,000 per violation, plus attorney fees. Those damages could increase exponentially, however, as the Illinois Supreme Court has interpreted the BIPA law to define individual violations as each time a person's biometric identifiers are scanned, not just the first scan. So, damages could be multiplied across thousands of eHarmony users, whose facial geometry may have been scanned multiple times.
Plaintiffs are represented in the action by attorneys Leah M. Beligan and Jerusalem F. Beligan, of Beligan Law Group, of Newport Beach; Michael L. Fradin, of Fradin Law, of Athens, Ohio; and James L. Simon, of Simon Law Co., of Chagrin Falls, Ohio.