A federal judge rejected Meta Platforms' request to throw out a lawsuit accusing it of violating Illinois biometric privacy law by allegedly collecting "voiceprints" from Messenger users. U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston in the Northern District of California denied Meta's motion for summary judgment, writing that "Plaintiff has forwarded sufficient evidence to create a genuine issue of material fact as to whether ... Meta has collected plaintiff’s voiceprint." The decision came in a lawsuit brought in 2023 by Illinois resident Natalie Delgado, who alleged in a class-action complaint that Meta violated the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act by collecting voiceprints without written consent. Delgado alleged that Meta updated its privacy policy in January 2023 to disclose that it “may” have collected users' voice recordings, and that those recordings “may be used to identify you.” Her complaint also referenced a patent awarded to Meta in 2020 for a method of identifying social networking users based on their voices. Meta argued there was no evidence it "processed" voice recordings in a way that would create "anything remotely resembling a voiceprint." Illston wrote there are "disputed facts regarding whether Meta has collected plaintiff’s voice recordings in a manner that is capable of identifying plaintiff due to the in-house technical capabilities Meta itself has developed and possesses."