Facebook ordered to pay $650m to settle facial recognition lawsuit

Settlement of class-action lawsuit one of the largest ever for privacy violation

A federal judge in the US on Friday approved a $650 million settlement of a class-action privacy lawsuit against Facebook over the firm's alleged use of facial recognition technology that used scans of users' faces without permission.

As part of the settlement, Facebook will pay three named plaintiffs $5,000 each while nearly 1.6 million others will receive at least $345.

The settlement was approved by the US district judge James Donato of the Northern District of California, who called it one of the biggest ever in privacy violations settlements and "a major win for consumers in the hotly contested area of digital privacy".

"It will put at least $345 into the hands of every class member interested in being compensated," Donato wrote in his decision [pdf].

In a statement, Facebook said that it was "pleased to have reached a settlement" in the case. The company added that it will now move past the matter, which will be "in the best interest" of its users and shareholders.

The class-action lawsuit against Facebook was filed in 2015 by Illinois residents Nimesh Patel, Adam Pezen and Carlo Licata. The lawsuit accused the firm of violating an Illinois privacy law by creating a photo-tagging feature that used scans of users' faces without their explicit permission.

The state's Biometric Information Privacy Act allowed customers to sue a company that harvested a person's biometric data, such as fingerprints and faces, without consent.

Facebook's photo-tagging feature enabled users to tag their friends in their newly-uploaded picture, while the Tag Suggestions tool offered suggestions about who the individual might be.

In 2018, Judge Donato ruled in San Francisco federal court that a class-action lawsuit was the most efficient way to resolve the dispute.

Facebook said at the time that it believed "the case has no merit" and that the company will defend itself vigorously in the court.

In 2019, Facebook changed its photo-tagging system and made facial recognition an opt-in only feature on its platform.

Earlier this month, a mass lawsuit was also filed against Facebook in the High Court in London, accusing the firm of having failed to prevent third parties from accessing the data of about a million users in England and Wales.

In the lawsuit, journalist Peter Jukes claimed that his data was compromised between November 2013 and May 2015, when the social network allowed third-party app 'This Is Your Digital Life' to access millions of users' data without their consent or prior knowledge. Data from the app was later used by Cambridge Analytica.

The mass legal action seeks damages from Facebook over failure to comply with the Data Protection Act 1998. Jukes said his main purpose is to ensure that the situation doesn't arise again.