Facial Recognition Consent
Last updated: April 14, 2025
Welcome to Somewhere Somehow Inc. (“swsh,” “we” and “us”). As part of our services, you have the option to use our “find photos of you” feature (the “Feature”) to identify you in photos or videos that you or other users of swsh upload to our platform. To provide this Feature, we, through our service provider, Amazon Web Services’ Amazon Rekognition (“Amazon Rekognition”), apply facial recognition technology to your profile photo of you to collect Biometric Information (defined below). Amazon Rekognition then uses this Biometric Information to identify you in other photos and videos that have been uploaded to swsh.
Please read this consent carefully. You understand that you are free to decline this Facial Recognition Consent but that means you won’t have access to the Feature. If you decide to proceed with using the Feature, you must agree to this Facial Recognition Consent by checking the facial recognition consent toggle within the swsh application. This toggle will be made available when you are setting up your swsh profile and within the “Permissions” section of your swsh profile settings. You can revoke your consent at any time (more information on this below).
Biometric Information:
The Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, 740 ILCS 14/1, et deq. (“BIPA”) and certain other state biometric privacy laws regulate the collection, storage, use, disclosure, and retention of “biometric identifiers” and “biometric information.” Generally, the term “Biometric Identifier” includes information such as a retina or iris scan, fingerprint, voiceprint, or scan of hand or face geometry. Biometric Identifiers generally do not include, among other things, physical descriptions such as height, weight, hair color, or eye color. “Biometric Information” includes any information, regardless of how it is captured, converted, stored, or shared, based on an individual’s Biometric Identifier, used to identify that individual.
This means that photos and videos of you alone don’t constitute Biometric Information. However, when you choose to use the Feature, we will extract certain Biometric Information from photos of you (for example, facial geometry) to identify you in any other photos and videos uploaded by you or other swsh users to our platform.
Identifications using your Biometric Information:
If you are identified in photos or videos uploaded by another swsh user, your identity will be shared with that user and any other users with access to such photos and videos. This includes owners and participants of albums containing those photos. You can reject an identification of you by pressing “This isn’t me” when viewing the photo or video.
If you don’t consent to our use of your Biometric Information pursuant to this Facial Recognition Consent, or later change your mind, we will delete your Biometric Data. You can learn more about how we handle photo identifications in our Privacy Policy — opens in a new tab.
Other Important Considerations:
- Disclosure: Amazon Rekognition collects, hosts and processes Biometric Information on our behalf so that we can make the Feature available to you. Amazon Rekognition is essential to our ability to provide you with the feature, and is contractually restricted in what they can do with your Biometric Information. Amazon Rekognition will not access or use your Biometric Information for any other purpose.
- Retention: We retain your Biometric Information until the earlier of (i) if you refuse or otherwise later revoke your Facial Recognition Consent, (ii) the initial purpose for collecting or obtaining such Biometric Information has been satisfied, or (iii) three (3) years following your last interaction with us. Amazon Rekognition will only store Biometric Information on our behalf for the retention periods set forth in this section. Once the retention periods in this section have expired, Biometric Information will be permanently and irretrievably deleted.
Consent: You acknowledge and agree that you have read this Facial Recognition Consent form, and that you voluntarily consent to swsh’s collection, retention, use, and disclosure of Biometric Information as set forth herein. By uploading a profile photo and toggling facial recognition on, you consent to our collection, storage, retention, use and disclosure of the foregoing information. Please see our Privacy Policy — opens in a new tab for more information.