One of the features that Facebook introduced to its platform several years ago was the ability to recognize faces in your photos. The idea was that it would make it easier for users to tag their friends in photos, although it seems that not everyone necessarily appreciates the convenience that the feature offers.Recently US District Judge James Donato has ruled that Facebook can now be sued in a class-action lawsuit filed by three Illinois users who claims that the feature gathered biometric data without their explicit consent. The lawsuit is being filed over an Illinois state law called the Biometric Information Privacy Act.
This law protects people over information such as fingerprints, retina scans, and facial recognition. According to Donato, he wrote that because this is now a class-action lawsuit, there is a chance that Facebook could be sued by other users as part of the class-action that could result in billions of dollars, assuming of course if other people join the lawsuit.
As it stands the suit is seeking damages of up to $5,000 for everytime a person’s image was used without permission. In a statement made to Reuters, Facebook was quoted as saying, “We continue to believe the case has no merit and will defend ourselves vigorously.”