Brantley v. Prisma Labs, Inc.

On March 14, 2023, Tyrone Brantley (“Plaintiff”), on behalf of himself and all others similarly situated, represented by Samuel J. Strauss and Raina C. Borrelli of Turke & Strauss LLP; and Michael F. Ram and Marie N. Appel of Morgan & Morgan Complex Litigation Group, filed a class action lawsuit against Prisma Labs, Inc. (“Defendant”), seeking injunctive relief and damages for alleged violation of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”). This case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, with Judge Jorge L. Alonso presiding. 

In the complaint, the plaintiff claimed, “Every individual has unique features by which he or he/she can be identified using a set of standard quantitative measurements, commonly referred to as ‘biometric identifiers.’”

Plaintiff alleged that “Prisma obtained Plaintiff and Class Member’s Biometrics by taking URLs for image/text pairs from the ‘LAION 5B’ dataset, a publicly available research database of over 5 billion such URLs indiscriminately scraped from the internet.”

The plaintiff then alleged, “Plaintiff is informed and believes that Prisma uses facial recognition technology to analyze images and map the unknowing subject’s face.”

Plaintiff further alleged, “Prisma has used and continues to use such technology, as part of the initial process of recognizing if the billions of scraped photos contained a human face, while training the generative AI database, and each time one of Prisma’s clients queried the Lensa AI, and in turn, the Biometric Database.”

Plaintiff also alleged, “Additionally, Prisma has distributed, disseminated, sold, traded, leased and otherwise profited from the Biometrics it unlawfully collected, captured and obtained.”

Additionally, the plaintiff alleged, “To date, the Prisma has, through Lensa AI, sold unfettered access to its vast Biometric Database to millions of individuals, including persons in Illinois.”

The plaintiff then alleged, “At relevant times, Plaintiff uploaded from Illinois to various websites on the internet photographs taken in Illinois and containing images of his face. Further, at relevant times, photographs taken in Illinois and containing images of Plaintiff’s face were uploaded by others to various websites on the internet. In creating the Biometric Database, Prisma searched millions of websites on the internet for image files.”

Plaintiff alleged, “After scraping photographs from the internet, Prisma, performed facial geometric scans of the various faces in the scraped photographs, including Plaintiff’s face and Class members’ faces, in order to collect, capture and obtain the Biometrics from those faces.”

The plaintiff also alleged that “Prisma also profited from the Biometrics in the Biometric Database, including the Biometrics of Plaintiff and Class members, by using those Biometrics to create Lensa AI’s output and to prevent losses and/or improve the client experience.”

The plaintiff further alleged, “Further, Plaintiff and Class members never consented, agreed or gave permission – written or otherwise – to Prisma for the collection or storage of their unique Biometrics. Indeed, prior to the Biometric Database being publicized, Plaintiff and Class members had no idea Prisma was ever in possession of their photographs and Biometrics.”

Plaintiff presented five claims for relief, including for alleged violation of 740 ILCS § 14/15(d), 740 ILCS § 14/15(c), BIPA, and the Illinois statutory right to publicity.

In the prayer for relief, the plaintiff requested a judgment for injunctive relief and an award of  statutory, compensatory, punitive, exemplary, consequential, general, and nominal damages and pre- and post-judgment interest. 

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