SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Facebook must face a class action lawsuit over its use of facial recognition technology, a California judge has ruled.
The lawsuit alleges that Facebook gathered biometric information without users' explicit consent.
It involves the "tag suggestions" technology, which spots users' friends in uploaded photos; the lawsuit says this breaches Illinois state law.
Facebook said the case had no merit and it would fight it vigorously.
On Monday, US District Judge James Donato ruled to certify a class of Facebook users - a key legal hurdle for a class action suit.
The class of people in question is Facebook users "in Illinois for whom Facebook created and stored a face template after June 7, 2011", according to the court order.
In a successful class action suit, any person in that group could be entitled to compensation.
In his order, Judge Donato wrote: "Facebook seems to believe... statutory damages could amount to billions of dollars."
The decision comes days after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg faced intensive questioning by US lawmakers over the company's collection and use of user data.
June 2011 was the date on which Facebook rolled out its "tag suggestions" feature.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Justin Case on Wednesday April 18 2018, @03:46PM (5 children)
Because everyone uses FB, right?
I never had a FB account. I never agreed to their terms of shafting. I never gave them permission to do one damn thing. Yet they and a few others like them [try to] follow me most everywhere I go -- on the web or in meatspace.
Try following that hottie into the restroom and see how long you can go without consequences. But this is OK because digital???!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by rigrig on Wednesday April 18 2018, @03:58PM (4 children)
I'm not sure how these things work, but I imagine you could start your own class-action lawsuit for "non-Facebook users for whom Facebook created and stored a face template"?
Possibly with better chances of winning and/or more damages, as you didn't agree to have anything to do with Facebook in the first place.
No one remembers the singer.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday April 18 2018, @06:25PM (3 children)
Remember this one folks!
While we're all sitting around patting each other on the back for seeing FB for what it was and never signing up remember one thing: They have a profile on all of us anyway!
And they sold that profile, illegally, and without any form of consent from you, to political campaigns and foreign/domestic intelligence operatives.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Thursday April 19 2018, @08:52AM (2 children)
Isn't the whole point that it's not illegal? The USA has no data protection law worth mentioning.
(Score: 2, Touché) by anubi on Thursday April 19 2018, @10:10AM (1 child)
Except Copyright.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Friday April 20 2018, @01:05PM
Fair point.