Meta must pay Facebook users in Illinois $650 million

Attractive compensation is currently available for a number of Facebook members in the USA. Users residing in Illinois in particular are benefiting from this. The reason for the damages of 397 US dollars each is Facebook’s controversial facial recognition. The social network had scanned the faces of the persons concerned without explicit permission. A decision that could also make waves beyond the borders of the US state.

Class action of 2015

The mills of the US judiciary grind slowly, but at least in the present example in favor of the plaintiffs. Facebook users living in Illinois, for example, filed class action lawsuits against the social network back in 2015. Now, some seven years later, the defendant bears a different name – Meta. The social network’s parent company had in fact allowed itself a name change in the meantime with a view to its soon-to-be-named “Metaverse.” However, this did not change the accusations. Those affected complained that their profile photos were analyzed by the tech company’s algorithm without being asked. At the time, it was common practice for Facebook to scan photos for familiar faces. If there was a hit, the social network automatically marked the person in question.

This procedure was and is highly controversial. After all, it not only violated the rights of people who were logged into Facebook. Since all people in a picture were automatically checked, people without a Facebook account were often affected as well. Since a group of users no longer wanted to accept this, they filed a class action lawsuit. The attorneys for the people affected supported their lawsuit against Meta with the so-called “Biometric Information Privacy Act. This also requires the express consent of the person concerned in the case of facial recognition.

Damages totaling 650 million US dollars

The court’s ruling comes as no surprise. After all, the plaintiffs already reached an agreement with Meta last year. According to the settlement, the tech company must now pay just under 650 million US dollars to the total of 1.6 million Facebook users residing in Illinois. For each of the affected individuals, this means a payment of 397 US dollars. Even though 650 million US dollars may sound like a lot of money, it is only peanuts for the gigantic Internet corporation. Meta, and Facebook in particular, will be glad that the inglorious story surrounding automatic facial recognition has thus come to an end for the time being. The corresponding headlines were anything but good for the reputation of the social network.