SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – On Friday, a federal judge approved a $ 650 million settlement of a privacy lawsuit against Facebook for allegedly using photo tagging and other biometric data without the permission of its users.
U.S. District Judge James Donato approved the agreement in a class action lawsuit filed in Illinois in 2015. Nearly 1.6 million Facebook users in Illinois who have filed complaints will be affected.
Donato called it one of the largest settlements ever for breach of privacy.
“It will put at least $ 345 in the hands of every class member interested in being compensated,” he wrote, calling it “a major gain for consumers in the hotly contested area of digital privacy.”
Jay Edelson, a Chicago lawyer who filed the lawsuit, told the Chicago Tribune that checks could be sent by post within two months, unless the judgment is appealed.
“We are excited to come up with a solution so that we can get over this issue, which is in the interest of our community and our shareholders,” Facebook, based in the San Francisco Bay Area, said in a statement.
The lawsuit accused the social media giant of violating Illinois’ privacy law by failing to obtain consent before using facial recognition technology to scan user-uploaded photos to create and store digital faces.
The law on the confidentiality of biometric information of the state allowed consumers to sue companies that did not obtain permission before collecting data such as faces and fingerprints.
The case eventually ended as a class action lawsuit in California.
Since then, Facebook has changed its photo tagging system.