In one of the largest data breach deals, Facebook agreed to pay $ 650 million to users in the US state of Illinois, who accuse the company of using facial tagging on photos and biometric information without consent. Users filed a class action lawsuit against Facebook in April 2015, alleging violation of the Illinois privacy law.
The complainants claimed that Facebook used its facial recognition technology to scan and collect photos of users of their profiles in an unauthorized manner.
District judge James Donato approved the deal, and as a result, the claimants will each receive at least $ 345 in compensation. “It is one of the biggest privacy breach agreements of all time. At the court’s request, the parties jointly developed an innovative notification and complaint procedure that generated an impressive complaint rate. The agreement attracted wide support and had only three objections among millions of members ”, he explains in the process.
In a statement, Facebook celebrated the deal. “We are pleased that we have resolved so that we can go beyond this issue, which is in the best interest of our community and our shareholders.”
Facebook has already paid several fines for several data breaches. In 2019, the National Consumer Secretariat of the Ministry of Justice (Senacom) of Brazil fined Facebook by R $ 6.6 million for the improper sharing of data in the case that became known as the “Cambridge Analytica scandal”, in which data from dozens millions of users of the platform worldwide have been used by the digital marketing company to influence elections and other political processes. According to the lawsuit, the social networking giant collected private data from about 87 million users through a personality test app called This Is Your Digital Life. With international news agencies.
Source: CisoAdvisor
