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Federal Court Rules Facebook Users Can Sue Company Over Unlawful use of Face Recognition Technology:
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled today that Facebook users can sue the company over its use of face recognition technology. The ruling is the first decision of an American appellate court directly addressing the unique privacy harms posed by the face recognition technology being increasingly pushed on members of the public without their knowledge and consent.
The ruling in Patel v. Facebook affirms the district court's certification of a class of Facebook users in Illinois who have alleged that the company violated their rights under their state's Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). The Illinois statute imposes protections against companies collecting and storing biometric information, including using face recognition technology, without the user's knowledge and consent. The suit alleges that Facebook's practice of using face recognition technology to identify users in digital images uploaded to the site without disclosing its use of face recognition or obtaining consent violates state law.
"This decision is a strong recognition of the dangers of unfettered use of face surveillance technology," said Nathan Freed Wessler, staff attorney with the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. "The capability to instantaneously identify and track people based on their faces raises chilling potential for privacy violations at an unprecedented scale. Both corporations and the government are now on notice that this technology poses unique risks to people's privacy and safety."
Today's ruling allows the case to move forward as a class action in district court. In an opinion by Judge Ikuta, the court "concludes that the development of a face template using facial-recognition technology without consent (as alleged here) invades an individual's private affairs and concrete interests." As the court explained, "the facial-recognition technology at issue here can obtain information that is 'detailed, encyclopedic, and effortlessly compiled,' which would be almost impossible without such technology." In light of these harms, the court found that the plaintiffs had alleged sufficient privacy injuries to have standing to sue.
"BIPA's innovative protections for biometric information are now enforceable in federal court," added Rebecca Glenberg, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Illinois. "If a corporation violates a statute by taking your personal information without your consent, you do not have to wait until your data is stolen or misused to go to court. As our General Assembly understood when it enacted BIPA, a strong enforcement mechanism is crucial to hold companies accountable when they violate our privacy laws. Corporations that misuse Illinoisans sensitive biometric data now do so at their own peril."
The ruling can be found online here: https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/patel-v-facebook-opinion
Before getting your hopes up too much, be aware that the this suit still needs to go to trial and only pertains to Facebook users in Illinois. That said, it is a shot across the bow for digital privacy.
(Score: 5, Informative) by fyngyrz on Friday August 09 2019, @03:01PM
It seems to me that the essential questions are, is it okay to look into people's lives without their consent? And if it is okay, for whom is it okay, and under what conditions?
For instance, many will argue that it's only okay for the government to do it if they have a warrant, with the idea that general privacy [fyngyrz.com] is protected by 4th amendment [cornell.edu] restrictions on government search and seizure.
The general practice at this point is that government, private individuals and corporations have been able to look into, and keep records of, anything they like. It is only recently that there has been a (slight, TBH) counter-reaction to people's supposedly private information — much of it acquired without their consent and sometimes directly against their best interests — being available to any curious party.
Also, there are some truly idiotic mis-interpretations of the 4th amendment [cornell.edu] that have infected the judicial view of what the 4th amendment [cornell.edu] actually means as far as the government goes, specifically due to using word "unreasonable" as a magic lever able to nullify every other word in the amendment as well as its profoundly obvious intent.
The issue of our privacy [fyngyrz.com] being something we control stands diametrically opposed to people in general's urge to gossip and play with their (usually at least somewhat) metaphorical pitchforks and torches, as well as the now-obvious corporate ability to turn collections of information almost directly into income.
I think this is an important issue to look at, and hopefully, settle clearly. Personally, I lean pretty hard on the privacy [fyngyrz.com] side of the scale.
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Don't use "beefstew" as a password.
It's not stroganoff.