Reuters
A California court approved a $ 650 million offer by Facebook to settle a class action lawsuit over the use of facial recognition technology, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Illinois residents filed a class-action lawsuit against Facebook in 2015, accusing the company of breaking the law by using facial recognition technology to collect biometric data.
Initially, the company offered to pay only $ 550 million, but a San Francisco district court expressed doubts about the adequacy of that amount.
According to the court ruling, each of the state’s 1.6 million residents who have filed the lawsuit will receive at least $ 345 in compensation from the company, and a portion of the funds will also be used to pay for the attorney’s costs.
According to the newspaper, Judge James Donato described the deal as a “historic result”.
“In general, the settlement of the claim is a serious victory for consumers in the urgent case of protecting personal data in the digital space,” the newspaper quoted the judge as saying.
Earlier, it was reported that “Facebook” will not use facial recognition technology automatically on the social network.
The company said that users always have the ability to choose whether to use face recognition, but it promised that this feature will be disabled by default in the future, and users will be able to allow its use in settings.
Source: “Chicago Tribune”
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