The Northern District of California could take on a new role in the enforcement of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act after Facebook proposed a head-turning $550 million class action settlement over alleged violations of the out-of-state legislation, some lawyers say.

Since the Jan. 29 settlement pending before U.S. District Judge James Donato, two proposed BIPA class actions against Google over the company's use of facial recognition technology in its Google Photos product have also landed in the district.

Although some lawyers have said the half-billion-dollar Facebook settlement is enough to have plaintiffs lawyers flocking to California's federal courts, Paul Geller, managing partner of Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd in Boca Raton, Florida, contends that the venue in these BIPA cases could be out of plaintiffs lawyers hands entirely.