On November 10, 2026, U.S. District Court Judge John J. Tharp Jr. granted class certification in a lawsuit alleging that Amazon violated Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) by collecting and storing biometric data through its Amazon Photos service without providing legally required notice or obtaining informed written consent.
In the order, Judge Tharp certified a class of Illinois residents with Amazon Photos accounts whose facial images were processed using Amazon’s facial-recognition technology through the Amazon Photos application. The ruling allows the claims of potentially hundreds of thousands of Illinois residents to proceed against Amazon.
The lawsuit, Hogan v. Amazon.com, Inc., case no. 1:21-cv-3169 in the Northern District of Illinois, alleges that Amazon Photos used facial‑recognition technology to analyze photographs uploaded to users’ accounts, generate numerical representations of individuals’ facial characteristics known as face embeddings, and group photographs depicting the same individual. According to the complaint, Amazon acquired this data without first informing individuals in writing that their biometric data was being collected and did not provide required notices regarding the specific purpose and duration of its collection or storage.
The court found that Illinois users could activate Amazon Photos’ image‑recognition feature without viewing the relevant notices required by BIPA. The court also highlighted that Amazon’s Terms of Use did not expressly identify the information being collected as biometric data, or use terms such as “biometric identifier,” “biometric information,” or “facial recognition.”
In certifying the class, Judge Tharp found that several central questions could be resolved through evidence common to all class members, including whether the data collected by Amazon are biometric identifiers under BIPA. The court determined that the class was sufficiently identifiable and that Amazon’s own account records, along with information provided by potential class members, could help establish membership.
The court also rejected Amazon’s arguments that individualized issues should prevent the case from proceeding as a class action.
“Amazon insists that ‘informed consent’ is an individualized issue, but this is not a subjective inquiry,” wrote Judge Tharp. “The ‘informed’ piece concerns what notice Amazon provided and whether it comports with BIPA’s requirements. The ‘consent’ inquiry is whether the users provided a ‘written release’ through the processes Amazon made available—logging in or toggling a switch. Amazon focuses on whether individual users chose to read the Terms of Service and other notices, but BIPA is concerned with what information Amazon provided to allow for users’ informed consent.”
The certified class covers Illinois residents whose faces appeared in at least one photograph uploaded to their own Amazon Photos account in Illinois while image recognition was enabled. The certified class period runs from October 18, 2016 through January 31, 2023. Amazon has identified 339,847 accounts associated with Illinois billing addresses in which image recognition had been enabled at some point. In addition to granting class certification, the court appointed Angela Hogan and her minor child as class representatives and appointed WBE attorneys Kenneth A. Wexler and Justin N. Boley as Co-Lead Counsel, citing the firm’s extensive experience in major complex and class litigation, including BIPA litigation. They are joined by lead co-counsel from the firms of Gustafson Gluek PLLC, Stephan Zouras, LLC, and Keller Rohrback L.L.P., as well as Taus, Cebulash & Landau, LLP, who were appointed to the Plaintiff’s Executive Committee.