According to a report by Courthouse News Service, the lawsuit, filed in Cook County Court, relates to Facebook’s ‘tag suggestions’ program, which scans users’ uploaded pictures and identifies any Facebook friends they may potentially want to tag.
The facial recognition technology is taken from Israeli firm Face.com, which Facebook eventually acquired. The lawsuit argues that this method of data mining directly violates users’ privacy laws, describing the facial recognition feature as a disregard for its users’ privacy rights, through which Facebook has amassed a privately held database of consumer biometrics data.
According to the Illinois Biometrics Information Privacy Act, it is unlawful to acquire biometric data without first providing the subject with a written disclaimer that details the purpose and length of the data collection, and without the subject’s written consent.
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