Amongst Gen Z-ers, Snapchat is the easiest, non-committal way to share your contact info with someone you just met, but the way people use the app goes far beyond messaging. Snapstreaks have become an internet sensation, and for those unfamiliar with the lingo, they are the number of consecutive days that two people send each other a picture through the app. The Snapchat streak feature was introduced in 2015 and believe it or not, the longest Snapchat streak is 2663+ days which amounts to over 7 years of sharing pics every day—ain’t nobody got time for that!

Alleged privacy violations lead to $35 million settlement
Although Snapchat has been around for years, attorneys had to work tirelessly to organize plaintiffs and file a class action complaint alleging Snap Inc. (the makers of Snapchat) violated Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”), based on the Defendant allegedly collecting and storing biometric data through the use of the “Lenses” and “Filters” offered by Snapchat. Attorneys fought hard to ensure a settlement and ultimately Snapchat did not admit any fault but will pay $35,000,000 to app users.

To qualify for this settlement you must have been or currently are an Illinois resident who used Lenses or Filters offered by Snap between November 17, 2015, and the present. As always you can file your own claim and must file by November 5, 2022, on the settlement website https://www.snapillinoisbipasettlement.com/. Please note when filing your own claim you should closely track communications with the administrator since they may request additional information or proof of eligibility. Now of course most of you want to know how much will I get before I spend time filing, so let’s get into it.

The settlement is paying out $35M. However let’s not forget about attorney and administrative expenses, which can add up to 35% of the settlement fund. With that said the net fund that will go to class members is roughly $23M and now what we need to determine is how many people will participate. According to settlement documents, there are believed to be about 4,000,000 class members and although this number is high, not everyone will file a claim.

What you could recover
In order to project the claim filing rate we can look at previous BIPA settlements in Illinois like the Facebook and Google BIPA cases where roughly 20% of the class filed a claim. If that were to occur in the Snapchat case then 800,000 claims would be filed and the payout per person is $28.75. In court documents, the attorneys interestingly state they believe the recovery will be between $58 and $117 which means they expect a much lower claim filing rate. At the end of the day, we believe the recovery opportunity for folks will most likely be towards the lower end of the attorney’s spectrum at about $50.

Let's get you filed!
CCC is here to support class members and help you recover your fair share of this settlement. The process to file is always a bit different and we make sure to read the fine print so you do not make a silly mistake that gets your claim rejected. Please sign up here if you wish to have a representative reach out and help you get started today: https://certificateclearing.com/index.php/snapchat-settles-class-action/