Judge dismisses Ancestry.com data privacy class action

Update: 

• An Illinois federal judge threw out a class action lawsuit claiming Ancestry.com collected and sold access to personal data, records and yearbook photos without consent. 
• The dismissal marks the second time a judge sided with Ancestry.com over the claims.
• The Ancestry.com class action lawsuit argued the company violated the Illinois Right of Publicity Act by using consumers’ likenesses without their consent to advertise and solicit its paid products and services. 
• The judge ruled the complaint failed to provide adequate evidence that Ancestry.com used the consumers’ information for a commercial purpose under the IRPA. 

(Dec. 24, 2020)

The popular genealogy website and service Ancestry has been hit with another class action lawsuit over claims the company collects and then sells access to personal data, records and yearbook photos without people’s permission.

According to the class action lawsuit, filed in federal court in Illinois on Dec. 14, Ancestry has violated the rights of millions of Illinois residents through its practices. Lawyers for the plaintiff say the company has amassed a database of information from school yearbooks from 1900 to 1999 that contains some 730 records, and profits by selling subscriptions to tap into that information.

At no point has Ancestry sought or received permission from the people who appear in those yearbooks, though, the class action lawsuit claims.

Sergio Bonilla of Great Lakes, Illinois, is one of those people.

He is the lead plaintiff in the new case and is seeking the Court’s permission to represent a Class of others from Illinois whose yearbooks photos and information have been extracted and monetized by Ancestry.

According to its website, Ancestry’s yearbook database includes more than 47 million records, including photographs, from Illinois grade schools and universities.

Bonilla and his legal team allege Ancestry.com Operations Inc. has violated Illinois state privacy laws and has committed intrusion upon seclusion and become unjustly enriched.

“In exchange for subscription payments ranging from $24.99 to $49.99 per month … Ancestry subscribers receive the ability to search, view, and download records in Ancestry databases,” Bonilla’s class action lawsuit says. “Ancestry did not ask the consent of the people whose personal information and photographs it profits from. Nor has it offered them any compensation for [their] ongoing use.”

A search of the Ancestry yearbook database turned up information about where Bonilla went to high school, his estimated birth year and at least one photograph of him.

“Mr. Bonilla’s face is plainly visible, as are the faces of the four other boys in the photograph, all of whom are aged between nine and 12 years old at the time of the photograph,” the class action lawsuit says.

The photograph and data are available to paid subscribers to Ancestry and to those participating in the company’s promotional 14-day free trial subscription, according to the complaint.

Bonilla’s class action lawsuit is at least the second of its kind to be leveled against Ancestry recently.

In late November, Meredith Callahan and Lawrence Abraham filed a similar class action lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Both lead plaintiffs say they do not subscribe to Ancestry, nor did they give their permission for their yearbook photos and information to appear in the company’s searchable database; however, they discovered their photos and information are included in it.

Have your yearbooks photos been collected and added to the Ancestry yearbook database without your consent? Tell us about it in the comment section below.

Lead plaintiff Bonilla and the proposed Class Members are represented by Shannon M. McNulty of Clifford Law Offices PC; Michael F. Ram and Marie N. Appel of Morgan & Morgan; and Benjamin R. Osborn.

The Ancestry Class Action Lawsuit is Sergio Bonilla, et al. v. Ancestry.com Operations Inc., et al., Case No. 1:20-cv-07390, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division.

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