 |
| The face recognition technology is forcing Facebook to pay $ 650 million |
Ultimately, a federal judge acquitted a class action lawsuit against Facebook for $ 650 million and ordered the fastest payment to the nearly 1.6 million Illinois members who filed the lawsuit.
Chicago attorney Jay Edelson represented a plaintiff (Carlo Licata) in a lawsuit against Facebook in Cook County Courthouse in 2015, claiming that it is subject to the Illinois Biometric Privacy Act.
The case was referred to the Federal Court in Chicago and then to the Federal Court of California, where the class-action status was granted.
The lawsuit alleges that Facebook's tag suggestion tool can scan faces in users' photos and make suggestions about a person's identity, and violates Illinois law by storing important data without the user's consent.
The case turned into a class action lawsuit in 2018, and Facebook only received facial recognition via the platform through a subscription in 2019.
Under the orders of Northern District Judge James Donato (James Donato), each of the three plaintiffs named in the lawsuit received $ 5,000 and the others received at least $ 345.
Donato said the deal is a historic achievement and a big win for consumers in the highly competitive digital privacy space.
The Important Information Privacy Act in Illinois is the most stringent in the United States. Organizations need to obtain approval before they can use technologies such as facial recognition to identify clients.
State biometric privacy laws allow consumers to sue companies that were not granted permission before collecting data such as faces and fingerprints.
"We are very excited to reach an agreement so that we can solve this problem, which is in the best interest of our community and our shareholders," Facebook said in a statement.
Edson told the Chicago Tribune. This is a big problem and a very clear message is being sent that the right to biometric privacy will remain in Illinois.
The solution initially involved about 6.9 million Facebook users in Illinois, and the social network created and saved face models for them after June 7, 2011.
Over the past nine years, Facebook users have had to live in the state for at least six months.
As of November 23, nearly 1.6 million application forms have been submitted, which represents approximately 22% of Facebook users in Illinois.
Of the $ 650 million Facebook was willing to pay, Donato paid $ 97.5 million in legal fees and nearly $ 915,000 in fees.