Consumer Apps · Shopping/Retail (resale marketplace) · Regulatory action
Mercari
Headline
To sell or buy on Mercari, attorneys allege you may be required to upload BOTH a selfie AND a photo of your government-issued ID — collecting your exact facial geometry, a biometric identifier that, unlike a password…
Not independently verified. Verification status: Unverified - heuristic first draft. Publish state: draft unverified.
To sell or buy on Mercari, attorneys allege you may be required to upload BOTH a selfie AND a photo of your government-issued ID — collecting your exact facial geometry, a biometric identifier that, unlike a password, can never be changed if it's ever exposed. Illinois law specifically requires written consent before collecting this, with penalties up to $5,000 PER VIOLATION for an intentional or reckless failure to get it.
- Severity
- Evidence tierUnassigned
- Claims confirmed
- Last verified2026-08-04
Primary source. None recorded — Unverified - heuristic first draft.
Terms
Arbitration
Mercari's Terms of Service contain an arbitration clause; attorneys are reportedly pursuing this specific claim as MASS ARBITRATION (not a class action) given that structure, following the by-now-familiar pattern of using individual arbitration filings at scale to create settlement pressure.
Data sharing
REPORTED MASS-ARBITRATION EFFORT (plaintiff-side claims, not findings; Labaton Keller Sucharow's intake page is dated March 2023 and now closed to new clients, and a July 2026 secondary report says the effort was still active in early 2026 with no settlement reported): attorneys allege Mercari violates Illinois's Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) by requiring users to upload a SELFIE AND A GOVERNMENT-ISSUED ID PHOTO for identity verification — collecting FACIAL GEOMETRY DATA (a unique, unchangeable biometric identifier) without first notifying users or obtaining the written consent Illinois law specifically requires for this category of data. BIPA provides for $1,000 per negligent violation and $5,000 per intentional or reckless violation (or actual damages, if greater) — among the highest per-violation statutory damages found anywhere in this tracker.
Fees and billing
Not itemized this pass.
Contacts
Privacy contact. Not recorded.
Legal notice. Not verified this pass. If publicly traded: SEC Form 10-K cover page gives the official corporate address; the Secretary of State business-entity search in the state of incorporation gives the registered agent, which must accept service. If private: the state registered agent is usually the only reliable route.
Mailing address. Not recorded.
Evidence
No claims have been itemized for this row yet.
No sources are on file for this row yet.
Source vault
Link status: Candidate - not yet fetched
| Document | Last fetch | |
|---|---|---|
| Privacy policy mercari.com (privacy notice not individually located this pass) | Not fetched yet | NOT CONFIRMED |
| Terms of service mercari.com (Terms of Service — direct URL not individually captured this pass) | Not fetched yet | NOT CONFIRMED |
| Website No URL recorded | Not fetched yet | — |
| Primary source No URL recorded Verification: Unverified - heuristic first draft | Not fetched yet | — |
Enforcement
No enforcement actions are linked to this row.
State statute
No HQ state on file, so no state statute applies by headquarters.