18 Apr Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Facebook Facial Recognition Technology
Last Monday, California judge James Donato ruled to certify a class of Facebook users and allowed a class action lawsuit against Facebook’s use of facial recognition technology to continue.
The class is made up of users in Illinois that Facebook had taken and stored a face template after June 7, 2011. The lawsuit says that Facebook’s collection of such biometric information without explicit user consent is against Illinois state law.
According to Facebook, the face templates are made up of information on the similarities in the photo users are tagged in. The feature is currently unavailable in Europe, Canada, and a number of other countries, but can be turned off by US users. Users who have not yet been tagged, or have removed themselves from tagged images will not have this template.
Source: BBC
