Claude is a series of large language models developed by Anthropic. It is also the name of the chatbot that uses these models to interact with users. Riccardo Milani/Hans Lucas /AFP via Getty Images
A Claude user filed a class-action lawsuit Sept. 29 against its parent company, Anthropic, alleging the chatbot violated Illinois privacy law through its biometric data requirements.
Jose Enrique Oriz Colon, a Chicago resident, filed the
in San Francisco Superior Court, where Anthropic is based, on his own behalf and on behalf of other users.
Colon claims Anthropic’s policy that requires users to submit a copy of their government-issued ID and a “live image” of their face for identification violates his state’s privacy law.
In the lawsuit, Colon claims Anthropic never told him in writing before the scan how long it would keep his biometric data and had no public policy stating when it would be permanently destroyed.
He claims both omissions by Anthropic violate the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act.
Anthropic responded to the lawsuit Thursday, saying they had received the lawsuit.
“We take the privacy of our users seriously. We’re aware of the complaint and are reviewing it,” a company spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email.
Colon claims Claude locked him out of his account until he completed an identity verification. He did so from Chicago, Illinois, by taking a photo of the front and back of his license. He then positioned his face in front of an on-screen camera for the system to capture a live image, according to the lawsuit.
Anthropic ran the information through its verification vendor and confirmed Colon was the person on the license.
Illinois law requires an entity to inform a person in writing of the purpose and length of time it will store and use the biometric data it collects, Colon stated in the lawsuit.
The law also requires disclosures about the destruction policy, Colon claims.
“Those protections allow individuals to decide whether to surrender their biometric identifiers and to know when the possessing entity must permanently destroy them,” the lawsuit states.
Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, speaks remotely during a Security Council meeting on artificial intelligence at the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters, on Sept. 23, 2026. Yuki Iwamura/AP Photo
Anthropic
a $1.5 billion lawsuit in July over its Claude chatbot. The landmark lawsuit filed by a group of authors alleged the company used pirated copies of their books to train its AI model.
The judge noted more than 480,000 books were involved in the claim.
In another court action, Anthropic lost its bid to overturn the Pentagon’s national security “supply chain risk” designation last week after a federal appeals court upheld the government’s decision to exclude Claude models from military systems and contracts.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled 2-to-1 to reject Anthropic’s claim that the designation exceeded the Pentagon’s authority.
