• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, December 13, 2024

Photo storage service Photobucket has been hit with a class-action complaint over allegations that it plans to license images for artificial intelligence purposes, and to sell photos to companies that can create facial recognition databases.

The suit was brought this week in federal court in Denver by two people who stored pictures in the service more than a decade ago, and two people who say they appear in photos that others uploaded. The plaintiffs are requesting an injunction that would prevent Photobucket from harnessing photos for facial recognition or artificial intelligence, and are also seeking monetary damages.

“When it encouraged customers to upload their photos, Photobucket never gave them notice that it might one day appropriate them for biometric data or machine learning,” Illinois residents Mac Pierce, Niki Hughes and Sean Hughes, and Iowa resident Valerie Cumming allege in the complaint.

“Rather, Photobucket told users that it was a cloud storage service for customers who wished to view their photos online, and it repeatedly promised users to respect their rights to their data and intellectual property and to be a responsible steward of the photographs entrusted to it,” the complaint continues.

The complaint doesn't allege that Photobucket has yet shared any photos with outside companies. Instead, some of the allegations regarding Photobucket's plans appear to stem from CEO Ted Leonard's comments to Reuters earlier this year that the company is in talks to license 13 billion photos and videos to train generative artificial intelligence models.

The users also allege that Photobucket -- which experienced a large drop-off in use since its 2003 launch -- recently revised its terms of use to explicitly give the company the right to license photos to the extent permitted by law, unless users opt out.

Those terms also say Photobucket won't license photos uploaded by residents of several states with privacy laws -- including California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Montana, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Washington -- but only if those residents inform Photobucket (either by sending an email or updating their profiles) that they live in those states.

The complaint includes a claim that Photobucket is violating the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, which prohibits businesses from compiling a database of faceprints without residents' written consent.

“Photobucket’s plan to license the 13 billion photographs for biometrics and generative AI uses is illegal because Photobucket is acting unilaterally and without obtaining valid consent,” the complaint alleges. “If it wishes to follow through on its licensing scheme it must obtain knowing, written consent from the owners of the photos (i.e., its account holders) and every other person depicted in them.”