Some Illinois Residents Expected To Receive $95 In Google Settlement

ILLINOIS — Illinois residents who filed a claim in the class-action lawsuit against Google last fall will be receiving payments, but they won’t be getting as much as those who brought the biometric lawsuit against the tech giant originally anticipated.

The $100 million suit, which promised to pay out money to people whose photos appeared on Google Photos between 2015 and 2022 will pay each person whose claim was verified about $95, attorneys told a Cook County judge in a hearing last week last week.

The lawsuit claims that Google violated privacy laws and Google agreed to the $100 million settlement last year. Residents had until last September to file a claim with experts anticipating that those who received part of the settlement could receive between $200 and $400 as part of the settlement.

The higher end of the payments was expected to be similar to a biometric lawsuit against Facebook in which many people received $400 as part of the settlement. According to court documents, 687,000 people Illinois residents and former residents filed claims in the Google lawsuit, which was six times less than the $650 million suit filed against Facebook.

When officials first reported expected payouts last fall, only about 420,000 people had their claims verified by court officials. With that many people expecting payments, court officials put the expected payout at about $154 per person. But with attorneys fees factored into the equation, lawyers said in last week’s court hearing that the final payment of claims would be around $95, officials said.

However, when a second verification process was conducted, more than 150,000 claims were approved by officials overseeing the proceedings, officials announced last week.

“We’re pleased to resolve this matter relating to specific laws in Illinois, and we remain committed to building easy-to-use controls for our users,” Google spokesperson José Castañeda said in a statement.

Google did not admit any wrongdoing in the matter.

Illinois biometric laws require companies to obtain consent from users before using and storing biometric information such as fingerprints and retina scans.