Judge Approves $650M Facebook Privacy Lawsuit Settlement
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Judge approves $650M Facebook privacy lawsuit settlement:
U.S. District Judge James Donato approved the deal in a class-action lawsuit that was filed in Illlinois in 2015. Nearly 1.6 million Facebook users in Illinois who submitted claims will be affected.
[...] "We are pleased to have reached a settlement so we can move past this matter, which is in the best interest of our community and our shareholders," Facebook, which is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, said in a statement.
The lawsuit accused the social media giant of violating an Illinois privacy law by failing to get consent before using facial-recognition technology to scan photos uploaded by users to create and store faces digitally.
[Illlinois'] Biometric Information Privacy Act allowed consumers to sue companies that didn't get permission before harvesting data such as faces and fingerprints.
A California federal judge issued final approval Friday in a $650 million Facebook class action privacy settlement, with an order to get at least $345 to each of nearly 1.6 million Illinois class members "as expeditiously as possible."
Chicago attorney Jay Edelson, who filed the initial lawsuit against Facebook nearly six years ago, said the checks could be in the mail within two months - barring an appeal over the court's decision.
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