Largest US Crypto Exchange Coinbase Faces Lawsuit Over Illegal Customer Biometrics Collection

The lawsuit alleges that Coinbase has accumulated "face templates" and fingerprints from thousands of Illinois residents without their consent.

Coinbase gathers fingerprint data from customers when they use fingerprint-scanning technology to log into their accounts.

Source : Getty

According to a proposed class-action lawsuit, Coinbase Inc., the largest crypto exchange in the US by trading volume, has been illegally collecting face templates and fingerprints of its customers, which violates the biometric privacy law in Illinois. As per a Bloomberg report, the suit, which was filed in federal court in San Francisco, claims that the cryptocurrency exchange obtains facial data from copies of government-issued IDs and selfies that users must provide when creating an account. Additionally, Coinbase gathers fingerprint data from customers when they use fingerprint-scanning technology to log into their accounts.

The Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act requires companies to obtain consent before collecting biometric data and to inform users how long the data will be retained. As a result, the law has been at the centre of numerous lawsuits against companies in various industries over the past few years.

The lawsuit alleges that Coinbase has accumulated "face templates" and fingerprints from thousands of Illinois residents without their consent, which exposes them to severe and permanent privacy risks, such as identity theft, in the event of a data breach.

The complaint states, "Coinbase has created, collected, and stored thousands of 'face templates' — highly detailed geometric maps of the face — and fingerprints from countless Illinois residents.”

A spokesperson for Coinbase declined to comment on the matter, reported Bloomberg.

The case, which is Massel v. Coinbase, Inc., has been filed in the US District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).

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