What was this settlement about?

Plaintiffs filed a class action complaint alleging that 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. Although Snapchat has offered filters for years, attorneys fought hard to ensure a settlement, and ultimately Snapchat did not admit any fault and paid $35,000,000 to app users.

Who qualified?

To have qualified you must have been an Illinois resident who used Lenses or Filters offered by Snapchat since November 17, 2015. According to Settlement documents, there were roughly 4,000,000 people identified as class members. However, not everyone filed a claim.

What did the settlement provide?

Monetary Damages: After attorney fees and administrative costs, the net proceeds of $23,000,000 were distributed to eligible people who filed a claim on time. Class Counsel estimated that the amount of each valid claim was between $58 and $117; however, the actual cash amount varied depending on the number of people that filed a claim. In order to better project the claim filing rate we applied previous rates in BIPA settlements in Illinois, such as the Facebook and Google BIPA cases, where roughly 20% of the class filed a claim. Using our projections, we estimated about 800,000 claims to be filed and the payout per person to be $28.75.

Note that CCC is not a claims administrator, nor can we provide any information on the status of claims. Please email or call us at 312-204-6969 with questions about a specific claim.