Facebook has finally settled a long-running lawsuit over its use of facial recognition. It agreed to stop scanning uploaded photos by default last year. The technology built a digital template of your face and automatically suggested tags in other photos based on this facial map. Facebook’s CFO, David Wehner, mentioned at the company’s latest earnings call that they have a settlement in principle that will resolve the lawsuit for $550 million.
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At said earnings call Facebook reported that Q4 profits grew to $7.3 billion, meaning that the total profits for 2019 totalled $18 billion.
The plaintiffs of the lawsuit sued based on the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act. The argument is that Facebook didn’t receive their “explicit consent” to collect their biometric data. A spokesperson said that the company “decided to pursue a settlement as it was in the best interest of our community and our shareholders to move past this matter.”
Some believe this result should be a blueprint of how these data privacy issues should be handled going forward and ACLU attorney Nathan Wessler think other US states should follow suit, saying “this case is a great example of how states can take the lead to protect their residents’ privacy rights despite Congress’ failure to do the same.”
One of the lawyers that brought this case forward on behalf of some of the plaintiffs, Jay Edelson, said: “Biometrics is one of the two primary battlegrounds, along with geolocation, that will define our privacy rights for the next generation. We are proud of the strong team we had in place that had the resolve to fight this critically important case over the last five years. We hope and expect that other companies will follow Facebook’s lead and pay significant attention to the importance of our biometric information.”
The settlement still needs to be approved by a judge, but it is expected to pass without prejudice.
Do you think Facebook were within their rights to use facial recognition in order to automatically tag your photos for you?
