Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange, is facing legal issues as it has been accused of collecting users’ biometric data without obtaining their consent or authorization. Michael Massel, the plaintiff, filed a lawsuit in a California District Court alleging that Coinbase violated the Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) in Illinois, which prohibits companies from gathering and storing biometric data such as thumbprints of their customers.
According to recent allegations, Coinbase has been accused of illegally collecting, utilizing, and retaining the fingerprints and facial scans of its users. As part of Coinbase’s Know-Your-Customers (KYC) protocols, users are required to register their biometric data as a means of identification to access their accounts.
However, it has been claimed that Coinbase has not obtained the necessary consent or authorization from its users to collect and store their biometric information.
As per a report by Decrypt, the plaintiff in the case against Coinbase has accused the exchange of disclosing his biometric data to various third parties without his consent. This has resulted in the plaintiff taking legal action against Coinbase, alleging that the exchange violated his privacy by sharing his biometric information without his authorization.
The lawsuit against Coinbase alleges that the plaintiff had opened a Coinbase account in the past five years and was required to set up biometric authentication for the mobile app by scanning their fingerprint to verify their identity. The lawsuit claims that Coinbase has collected, stored, possessed, obtained, used, and disseminated users’ biometric data to enhance its online platform and profit from it, without obtaining the necessary consent or authorization. the exchange has not yet responded to these accusations.
The exchange has faced several legal challenges recently, although the company maintains that it adheres strictly to the laws of all the regions in which it operates. In March of this year, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) threatened to sue Coinbase Global over some of its products, including the spot market, Earn, Prime, and Wallet.
Coinbase has responded by requesting that the SEC make a decision on its petition, which is being viewed as a reaction to the SEC’s threat to investigate the crypto company. Despite these legal issues, the trading platform remains the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the US and one of the largest in the world, with over 103 million users and nine million monthly active users as reported by Bankless Times.
