Facebook has been slapped with a class action lawsuit which accuses the social networking giant of violating the privacy of its users by gathering their biometric face recognition data.
The lawsuit, recently filed in Cook County Court, revolves around Facebook’s “tag suggestions” feature, added in 2010, which uses facial biometrics to match faces in new user photos to others where those individuals have already been identified.
The class action lawsuit alleges that Facebook’s facial recognition program violates users privacy’s citing an Illinois law called Illinois Biometrics Information Privacy Acts which require companies to seek users’ written consent before collecting their biometric data, reports Courthouse News.
In addition, the law also mandates that the company state the intent and duration of its data collection scheme.
Carlo Licata, the lead representative of the class-action lawsuit, claims that Facebook did not comply with the law when it launched its biometric facial recognition plan.
Licata said he “never gave permission for Facebook to collect or store biometric data, nor was he notified or given an opportunity to prohibit or prevent it from doing so.”
He called it a “brazen disregard for its users’ privacy rights,” through which Facebook has “secretly amassed the world’s largest privately held database of consumer biometrics data.”
Responding to the allegations, a Facebook spokesperson, in an email statement, called the lawsuit “without merit”, and stated that the company will “defend [itself] vigorously”. The statement also noted that the face-tagging feature could be disabled, which deletes the data used to suggest tags to other people.
