Apple's Next Legal Risk Could Reach $40 Billion Faizan Farooque Fri, October 16, 2026 at 4:53 PM EDT AAPL +0.43% Trade Apple on Coinbase Trading disclosure Trading disclosure The above button links to Coinbase. Yahoo Finance is not a broker-dealer or investment adviser and does not offer securities or cryptocurrencies for sale or facilitate trading. Coinbase pays us for certain activity generated through this link. Prices displayed are informational.
Apple Inc. (AAPL, Financials), the creator of the iPhone, is headed for a jury trial in a biometric privacy issue that might become one of its biggest legal concerns.A federal court in Illinois decided to dismiss most accusations that Apple's Photos app collects and saves facial faceprints without sufficient notice or consent.The plaintiffs believe that nearly 8 million Illinois citizens are in the certified class.Penalties can be as high as $5,000 per person for breaches of the state's biometric privacy statute that are willful or negligent. This might result in a possible exposure of up to $40 billion.That doesn't imply Apple will end up paying anywhere close to that amount.The corporation disputes any wrongdoing, saying its facial-recognition technology does not make the type of regulated biometric scan that the law covers.But the potential enormity of the liability makes it a hard case to dismiss.That matters beyond Apple too. Such arguments over face data might spill over from the internet giant to other big tech corporations as courts figure out how decades-old privacy regulations relate to modern AI-driven recognition techniques.The crucial question for investors is whether the case remains small or sets a larger precedent. The next step is a jury trial this spring and if Apple will be able to limit the claims before then.`
