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A federal judge in California on Thursday allowed Illinois residents to continue with a simplified version of their class action against Google, accusing the tech giant of violating biometric privacy laws by using facial data collected from IBM.

U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman ruled in favor of Steven Vance and Tim Janecyk, permitting their claim that Google violated the Illinois Biometric Privacy Act (BIPA) by collecting their biometric information without their consent. Judge Freeman also allowed their claim for unjust enrichment under Illinois law to proceed, but only insofar as they seek injunctive relief.

"The court finds that plaintiffs have pled enough facts from which reasonable inferences can be drawn to establish a plausible BIPA violation," the judge wrote.

However, Judge Freeman dismissed one of the plaintiffs' claims, ruling that Vance and Janecyk failed to present sufficient facts to show that Google "otherwise profited" from the biometric data. While the plaintiffs argued that Google used the IBM dataset to improve its facial recognition products, including Google Photos and Pixel smartphones, the judge concluded that this wasn't enough to sustain their claim of profit derived from the data.

The lawsuit, filed in 2020, claims that IBM created a dataset by scanning 100 million images from Flickr and made it available to for-profit entities. Google reportedly used this dataset to enhance its facial recognition technologies. The plaintiffs alleged that these technologies were employed in products such as Google Photos, Google Nest Hub Max, Google Pixel smartphones, and the Cloud Vision API.

In a previous ruling, Judge Freeman dismissed the case but allowed Vance and Janecyk to amend their complaint. This time, the judge concluded that the plaintiffs had provided enough evidence to suggest that the alleged violations occurred "primarily and substantially" in Illinois. Specifically, they claimed that the Pixel smartphones were engineered in Chicago and that the dataset included images of Illinois residents.

While Google argued that the plaintiffs failed to prove where the dataset was obtained or how it profited from it, Judge Freeman stated that these facts were not "necessarily dispositive."

Regarding unjust enrichment, the judge allowed the claim to continue, though she noted that the plaintiffs had not demonstrated that they lacked an "adequate remedy at law" for restitution or disgorgement. Nonetheless, the plaintiffs may still seek equitable relief, such as an injunction, to prevent future harm.

Vance and Janecyk had previously filed a separate lawsuit against IBM in Illinois state court, claiming it collected their facial data without consent. Nearly identical cases have been filed in California against Google and other tech companies, including FaceFirst, Amazon, and Microsoft.

Google and the plaintiffs' legal teams did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday.

The case is Steven Vance et al. v. Google LLC, case number 5:20-cv-04696, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The plaintiffs are represented by Gary F. Lynch of Lynch Carpenter LLP, Scott R. Drury of Drury Legal LLC, Todd D. Carpenter of Lynch Carpenter LLP, and Katrina Carroll of Lynch Carpenter LLP. Google is represented by Bobbie J. Wilson, Sunita Bali, Susan D. Fahringer, Lauren J. Tsuji, and Anna Mouw Thompson of Perkins Coie LLP.