Case Explained: G.T., by and through next friend LILIANA T. HANLON v. SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS AMERICA, INCORPORATED and SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS COMPANY, LIMITED

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit Filed: 2026-08-07 The Seventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the plaintiffs’ class action suit against Samsung for violating the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), holding that the complaint failed to plausibly allege that Samsung “possessed,” “collected,” “captured,” or “obtained” biometric data as required by 740 Ill. Comp. Stat. § 15(a) and (b). Applying Illinois statutory construction rules, the court determined that the terms “possession,” “collect,” “capture,” and “obtain” in BIPA require a private entity to have actual control over the biometric identifiers or information. The court reasoned that while Samsung manufactured the devices and preinstalled the Gallery App which creates face templates from user photos, the plaintiffs failed to allege that Samsung controlled the resulting data because the templates were stored locally on the users’ devices, not on Samsung’s servers, and the users retained the ability to delete the data or disable the feature. Distinguishing cases where manufacturers were found to have control due to exclusive access or inability of users to modify data, the court concluded that providing a tool (the smartphone and app) that allows users to voluntarily capture their own biometric information does not equate to the manufacturer possessing or collecting that information under BIPA. Consequently, the judgment for Samsung stands, and the plaintiffs are barred from proceeding with their claims based on the current allegations. Do It For The Case Law is a news reporting service. Nothing in this episode constitutes legal advice.