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posted by martyb on Thursday January 30 2020, @01:16PM   Printer-friendly
from the smile-for-the-camera dept.

Facebook pays $550M to settle facial recognition privacy lawsuit:

Facebook will create a cash fund of $550 million for its Illinois users who filed a lawsuit over its privacy practices, law firm Edelson PC said on Wednesday. The settlement came after Facebook was sued for collecting facial recognition data to use in tagging photos, which allegedly violated the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act.

Tagging someone in a photo on Facebook creates a link to his or her profile, with the feature finally made opt-in by Facebook last year. Facebook's photo tag suggestions come from collecting facial recognition data from other photos.

[...] The case has been ongoing since 2015, and the settlement has yet to be approved by the judge in the case. Illinois is the only state to have biometric privacy laws that allow people to sue for damages if their rights are violated.

Facebook settled because "it was in the best interest of our community and our shareholders to move past this matter," the company said in an emailed statement.


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Thursday January 30 2020, @02:52PM (3 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday January 30 2020, @02:52PM (#951183) Journal

    I didn't like that "feature" since the first time I heard of it. All fifty states, Puerto Rico, D.C, and the rest of the world should have jumped on that bandwagon. Divvy up half of Facefook's fortune among the masses. I probably wouldn't get a dollar, but take that money and dole it out.

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  • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday January 30 2020, @07:38PM (1 child)

    by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Thursday January 30 2020, @07:38PM (#951359) Journal

    The other 50 states are welcome to pass similar laws. Or the Fed could, I imagine

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 30 2020, @09:39PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 30 2020, @09:39PM (#951436)

    Interesting how suddenly you're OK with wealth redistribution because it is an entity you don't like doing something you don't like. They only broke the law in Illinois it seems, and even then if I requested we liquidate a coal/gas company for violating environmental regulations I'm pretty sure you'd scream about fasicst socialism mao stalin death camps.