Ring Loses Bid to Dismiss Biometric Claims Over Doorbell Cameras

Ring LLC must face allegations that it used its doorbell cameras to record passersby and collect their biometric data without their consent, after a federal judge in Seattle ruled that the court couldn’t yet determine whether Ring had the capacity to identify specific individuals.

Michelle Wise, seeking to represent a class of people who don’t own Ring cameras but claim that their faces have been recorded, sued under Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act. Wise said that Ring didn’t obtain consent before collecting facial biometrics from passersby, nor did it create a publicly available data retention and destruction schedule, as required under the act.

Wise cited Ring’s patent application material for a facial recognition system that would allow law enforcement and homeowners to upload photos of individuals to be matched against the faces of people walking by Ring cameras.

But Ring argued that without other identifying information, like a name or address, the biometric data can’t be used to identify anyone. The company cited Zellmer v. Facebook Inc., a ruling which said that Facebook couldn’t be held liable for failing to obtain consent from all non-Facebook users whose faces might be scanned in uploaded photos.

Judge John C. Coughenour of the US District Court for the Western District of Washington refused to dismiss Wise’s suit, noting that Wise said that Ring’s patent applications describe a system capable of immediately identifying someone. It’s premature to strike the allegations, Coughenour said in his Monday opinion.

Wise is represented by Terrell Marshall Law Group PLLC, Miller Shah LLP, and Lynch Carpenter LLP. Ring is represented by Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP and Davis Wright Tremaine LLP.

The case is Wise v. Ring LLC, W.D. Wash., No. 2:20-cv-01298, 8/3/22.