On March 20, 2025, U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman approved a nationwide class-action settlement that grants class members a 23% equity stake in Clearview AI. The settlement, outlined in a 36-page order, is a first-of-its-kind resolution to privacy litigation involving alleged violations of Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) and other state laws.

The case centered on Clearview AI’s collection and use of biometric data. The company, a U.S.-based facial recognition startup, built a database of more than 60 billion facial images by scraping photographs from social media platforms, news websites, Venmo, and other publicly accessible online sources. Its software enables law enforcement agencies to upload a photo of an individual and receive potential identity matches

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