Class action against Facebook over facial recognition could pave the way for further lawsuits
As a class action lawsuit launches against Facebook and its facial recognition software, Deakin University’s Sandeep Gopalan considers the implications here in Australia.
Facebook’s privacy problems suffered a major setback in a US Federal Court this week. Judge James Donato of the Northern District federal court in San Francisco allowed a class action brought by Facebook users in Illinois to go ahead.
The case was brought by Nimesh Patel and others representing a class of Facebook users alleging that the “Tag Suggestions” feature violates their privacy rights. Facebook’s tagging feature allows users to tag themselves or friends in photos, and Facebook also uses facial recognition technology to suggest friends be tagged. Patel alleged that the collection and storage of such biometric data violates provisions of the Illinois Biometric Privacy Act (BIPA).
Illinois is one of only a small number of states in the US (Texas and Washington are the others) with legal protection for biometric data. Industry lobbies have killed off proposed legislation in other states including California and Facebook is apparently lobbying to remove the Illinois law.
