It’s been only days that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg went through rigorous questioning by US lawmakers over the company’s gathering and exploitation of user data; and now Facebook is on the verge of facing a class action lawsuit for unlawfully infringing users’ privacy by using facial recognition technology on user’s photos without their permission.
US District Judge James Donato announced in San Francisco, California federal court on Monday that Facebook gathered biometric information with no prior consent from the users. The lawsuit says the social media mogul has violated Illinois state law. The face recognition technology also includes tag suggestions technology through which not only the users’ will be spotted but also the friends of the users will also be spotted in the uploaded photos.
The claims were made by Illinois residents Nimesh Patel, Adam Pezen, and Carlo Licata and Donato ruled the same and said: “… the case will proceed with a class consisting of Facebook users located in Illinois for whom Facebook created and stored a face template after June 7, 2011.”
Judge Donato wrote: “Facebook seems to believe… statutory damages could amount to billions of dollars.”
“We continue to believe the case has no merit and will defend ourselves vigorously,” was Facebook‘s response to the allegations.