Facial Recognition.
A class-action lawsuit against Facebook has been given the green light earlier this week by a San Francisco federal Judge. The lawsuit, which was filed back in 2015, contends that the social media giant broke the law by administering facial recognition on photos without the approval of its users.
In 2011, Facebook started using the “face template” tool when it began its Tagging Suggestion where users can tag their friends and family in photos. And four years later the lawsuit was filed because harvesting the face templates of users without informed and written consent is a volition of an Illinois law dealing with the ‘privacy of biometric identification technology’.
Facebook Photo Tagging.
Facebook contends that they have always been open about how their tagging system works, and options on how to turn off the feature can be easily found on their Help Center page.
Facebook went on to further claim that since their servers don’t reside in Illinois, that the privacy law does not apply. A Spokesperson for Facebook informed CCN that, “We continue to believe the case has no merit and will defend ourselves vigorously.”
Data Servers.
U.S. District Court James Donato wrote, “Contrary to Facebook’s suggestion, the geographic location of its data servers is not a dispositive factor. Server location may be one factor in the territoriality inquiry, but it is not the exclusive one.”
This is the second privacy concern in a matter of a few weeks for the social networking service company. Recently news articles came out that Facebook gave access to user data to Cambridge Analytica, a political data firm.
I’m Francine Ward, what are your thoughts? Join me in my Esteemable Acts Facebook Fan Page, my Esteemable Acts Twitter Page, Google+, or in one of my LinkedIn Group discussions.
