Judge Approves $ 650 Million Facebook Privacy Settlement Over Facial Recognition Feature



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On Friday, a federal judge gave final approval to a $ 650 million Facebook privacy settlement and ordered the 1.6 million Illinois group members who had submitted claims to be paid “as quickly as possible”.

Chicago attorney Jay Edelson sued Facebook in Cook County Circuit Court in 2015, alleging that the platform’s use of facial recognition tagging was not permitted under the US Act. Illinois biometric privacy. The lawsuit claimed that Facebook’s tag suggestion tool, which scanned faces in users ‘photos and offered suggestions about the person’s identity, stored biometric data without users’ consent, in violation of the law. Illinois law.

The case became a class action lawsuit in 2018. In 2019, Facebook performed facial recognition on the opt-in platform only.

The three plaintiffs named in the lawsuit will each receive $ 5,000 and the others in the group will receive at least $ 345 each, according to the order of Judge James Donato of the Northern District of California. Donato said the settlement was a “historic achievement” and a “major victory for consumers in the highly controversial area of ​​digital privacy”.

“We are pleased to have reached an agreement so that we can bypass this issue, which is in the best interest of our community and our shareholders,” Facebook said in a statement.

“It’s a big deal,” Edelson said The Chicago Tribune. “It sends a pretty clear message: In Illinois, biometric privacy rights are here to stay.”

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