Facebook Violates Ill. Biometric Law With Facial Recognition, Class Action Says

Facebook, Inc. was hit with a class action lawsuit by an Illinois man, alleging that the social media company’s facial recognition software is a violation of an Illinois privacy law dictating the use of biometric data.

Plaintiff Carlo Licata claims that Facebook has a “brazen disregard for its users’ privacy rights” as demonstrated in its practice of collecting biometric data on its members for the purpose of enhancing its facial recognition software that is used in “tag suggestions” when users upload pictures to the social media website.

Licata says in his Facebook class action lawsuit filed on April 1 that he has been a Facebook member since 2009 and has uploaded numerous pictures to his Facebook page and has been tagged in pictures uploaded by some of his Facebook friends.

However, he claims that he “never consented, agreed, or gave permission-written or otherwise-to Facebook to collect or store biometrics identifiers associated with his faceprint.”

In addition, “Licata was never provided with nor ever signed a written release allowing Facebook to collect or store his biometric identifiers derived from his faceprint,” the Facebook privacy class action lawsuit explains.

Nor was he ever notified of the practice or given the opportunity to opt-out of it, he adds.

“Nevertheless, when Licata uploaded photographs to his account and made them his profile pictures and also when he was tagged in photos, Facebook scanned those photos, located his face, determined who he was, and created a unique faceprint or “template” for him

based on his biometric identifiers, including his facial geometry,” the class action lawsuit alleges.

“Facebook subsequently stored Licata’s faceprint in its databases,” the California man says.

Licata explains in his Facebook privacy class action lawsuit that the social media company started adding “Tag Suggestions” to its platform in 2011.

“If Tag Suggestions recognizes and identifies one of the user’s Facebook friends, Facebook will suggest that individual’s name and./or automatically tag them,” the class action lawsuit explains.

However, Licata alleges that “Facebook actively conceals from its users that its Tag Suggestion feature actually uses proprietary facial recognition software to scan their uploaded photographs, locate their faces, extract unique biometric identifiers associated with their faces, and determine who they are.”

According to the Facebook class action lawsuit, the social media company does not disclose this practice, but “merely hints at the underlying functionality behind Tag Suggestions — only describing the feature’s use of facial recognition software on remote sections of its website.”

Licata alleges that “with millions of its users in the dark about the true nature of this technology, Facebook secretly amassed the world’s largest privately held database of consumer biometrics data.”

According to the privacy class action lawsuit, Facebook has violated Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), passed in The Land of Lincoln in 2008.

“The BIPA makes it unlawful for a company to, among other things, ‘collect, capture, purchase, receive through trade, or otherwise obtain a person’s or a customer’s biometric identifiers or biometric information, unless'” a person is informed “‘in writing that a biometric identifier or biometric information is being collected or stored . . . of the specific purpose and length of the term for which'” the information is collected, and “‘receives a written release executed by the subject of the biometric identifier or biometric information,'” the Facebook class action lawsuit explains.

Licata is asking for $5,000 if the court decides the BIPA violations were “intentional and reckless” or $1,000 if it’s decided that the the “violations were negligent.”

Licata is represented by Jay Edelson, Rafey Balabanian, Benjamin H. Richman, J. Dominick Larry and David I. Mindell of Edelson PC.

Counsel information for Facebook is not yet available.

The Facebook Biometric Data Class Action Lawsuit is Licata v. Facebook, Case No. 2015CH05427 in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois.