Facebook has been trying to get a lawsuit claiming its facial recognition tech violates an Illinois privacy act dismissed for years. Well, that’s not going to h…
Facebook has been trying to get a lawsuit claiming its facial recognition tech violates an Illinois privacy act dismissed for years. Well, that’s not going to happen anytime soon, because San Francisco federal judge James Donato — the same judge who denied Facebook’s motion to dismiss in 2016 — has just given the case the go-ahead to proceed as a class action lawsuit. « Plaintiffs’ claims are sufficiently cohesive to allow for a fair and efficient resolution on a class basis, » he wrote in his ruling .
Judge Donato didn’t agree with Facebook’s argument that the law doesn’t apply to it, because its servers aren’t located in the state. He said the servers’ geographic locations aren’t « a dispositive factor » in the case. The lawsuit was originally filed back in 2015 by users in Illinois, accusing the social network of violating a law in the state that prohibits the collection of biometric info.
According to Donato’s decision, the class action will consist of users in the state « for whom Facebook created and stored a face template after June 7,2011. » That was when the company rolled out « Tag Suggestions, » which recognizes and suggests people you can tag in photos. Not everyone who’s had their photos uploaded on the website can be part of the complaint, but the class-action could still have millions of people in the plaintiff’s camp. Facebook, however, « continue[s] to believe the case has no merit and » vows to « defend [itself] vigorously. »
