Nine major technology companies, including Apple, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia and Samsung, are facing class action lawsuits in Chicago federal court over allegations they used thousands of hours of recorded human voices without permission to train AI systems. The cases, brought under Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), could expose each defendant to hundreds of millions of dollars in statutory damages.
Ross Kimbarovsky of Loevy & Loevy represents the plaintiffs - a group of journalists, podcasters and audiobook narrators. "They harvested as much information as they could from every source imaginable," he said. Each company faces violations of multiple BIPA provisions, as well as state laws governing publicity and consumer fraud. The lawsuits do not allege copyright violations, unlike other AI training data cases.
What BIPA requires
Illinois' biometric privacy law requires companies to inform people before collecting biometric data, obtain consent, and detail the scope and duration of collection. Companies must also publish written policies for destroying collected data and are prohibited from selling it. Illinois narrowed BIPA penalties in 2024 after a surge of litigation, but companies still face $1,000 per negligent violation or $5,000 per intentional or reckless violation, applied per victim and for each subsection violated.
The plaintiffs include prominent Chicago journalist Carol Marin and Pulitzer Prize winners Yohance Lacour and Alison Flowers. The nine cases are spread across seven federal judges in Chicago, though Apple last month asked for consolidation before a single judge.
Tech companies fight back
Meta's legal team includes Gary Feinerman, a former federal judge appointed by President Barack Obama who stepped down in 2023. Alphabet's lineup includes Andrew Schapiro, a Quinn Emanuel partner who defended Google in a lawsuit over data collected in Chrome's "Incognito" mode, which settled without monetary damages.
In motions to dismiss, the companies argue the lawsuits are speculative and that BIPA shouldn't apply because the alleged misuse didn't take place in Illinois. "They allege only that their recordings are available on the internet; they do not offer any facts to support an inference that Apple used those recordings to train its technology," Apple's lawyers said in a filing Monday.
Lody & Lody previously brought BIPA suits against rail giant Enz for a $75 million settlement in 2024 and against Motorola Solutions for $47.5 million in 2025. The firm also serves as lead counsel in a class action against facial recognition company ClearView AI. It has pending lawsuits against AI music generators that allege both BIPA and copyright claims.
Separately: Anthropic fee dispute escalates
In a related but distinct case, a group of plaintiffs' firms has appealed a judge's order denying them fees in the $1.5 billion settlement against AI startup Anthropic. The namely-named firms say they should receive compensation for work in the copyright litigation against the startup.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup wrote that non-appointed firms "cannot appoint themselves class counsel by showing up," denied their request for $75 million, and called them "interlopers." The firms have appealed. The firms appointed to lead the case actually received about $101 million - less than the $187.5 million they originally sought.
Why this matters for legal professionals
These cases could establish how BIPA applies to AI training data, defining who has standing to sue when this data is scraped from the internet. The litigation also tests the boundaries of statutory damages when each violation is applied per person and per subsection. The consolidation fight and the dismissal motions will shape procedural precedent for AI class actions. In-house lawyers and outside counsel representing tech companies should track this closely: The outcomes will inform which AI strategies comply with state biometrics laws.
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