This article is reproduced from IT Home. According to foreign media reports, California District Judge James Donato made a ruling on Saturday, approving Facebook’s $650 million privacy class action settlement agreement. The lawsuit accuses Facebook of using facial recognition technology on user photos stored on its iPhone app without permission.
The lawsuit began in April 2015, when Facebook was accused of using its facial tagging feature on their photos without the user's consent. The lawsuit was initially filed by Chicago lawyer Jay Edelson on behalf of the plaintiff Carlo Licata, and eventually evolved into a class action lawsuit. Facebook has approximately 6.9 million users in Illinois, of which approximately 1.6 million (22%) have agreed to participate in class actions.
The indictment alleges that Facebook violated the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, which is one of the most stringent privacy laws in the United States, requiring companies to obtain user permission before starting to use biometric systems to process their data. Including facial recognition system.
Judge Donato said that this settlement is one of the largest privacy protection agreements of its kind and is a "milestone result" for the class action. He said: "Overall, in the highly competitive digital privacy field, this settlement agreement is a big victory for consumers."
In the $650 million settlement agreement, each plaintiff is expected to receive at least $345 in compensation, while the three plaintiff representatives will each receive $5,000. Edelson will receive US$97.5 million in legal fees and approximately US$915,000 in other related expenses.
The compensation will be sent to the plaintiff within two months, who can still appeal the ruling.
This is not the only privacy lawsuit facing Facebook due to its use of biometric data. In August 2020, the company was sued in a court in Redwood, California, accused of collecting and storing biometric data of more than 100 million Instagram users and profiting from it, this time also due to the use of facial recognition technology .