Facebook is forced to pay $ 650 million for violating user privacy through facial recognition through the “tagging suggestions” tool.

The action started in 2015 became a collective lawsuit, and on 26.02.2021, a federal judge definitively confirmed the solution regarding the violation of confidentiality within the collective action Facebook, awarding compensation to the plaintiff users of 650 million dollars.

The court ruled that it was a real injury, with a precedent, with two other US courts previously reaching the same conclusion.

In the process started in 2015, it was claimed that the tool offered by Facebook application, respectively “Labeling Suggestions”, which scanned the faces from users’ photos and offered suggestions about who that person might be, stored biometric data without users consent, thereby violating Illinois law.

In 2019, during the trial, Facebook proposed that the facial recognition function be only optional.

At the end of January 2020, Facebook agreed to pay $ 550 million after failing to get the action annulled for procedural flaw, but in July 2020 the trial judge ruled that this amount was not enough.