Facebook was charged with a lawsuit regarding its facial
recognition system as the facial recognition software found on the platform
generated a lot of controversy towards Facebook. The controversy was ignited
more as there are protests against police brutality. Facebook has offered to
pay $650 million for long-running, class-action lawsuit about the use of facial
recognition technology.
The final offer by the US district judge is $100 million
more than the initial offer. Earlier this year, US district judge rejected the
initial amount of $550 million by the social media company. Facebook, in a
statement, said, “We are
focused on settling as it is in the best interest of our community and our
shareholders to move past this matter.”
The lawsuit
was initially filed by three residents from Illinois who noticed that Facebook
was using scanning their faces without any proof of written consent. Illinois’
law of Biometric Information Privacy Act allowed the residents to sue the social
media company. The suing residents informed that Facebook’s feature to suggest names
of users in a photo was violating the mentioned privacy act.
Earlier this
year, the initial settlement offer by Facebook was made for $550 million which
would have resulted in payouts of $150 to $300 per person who have been affected
by the facial recognition technology in the state of Illinois. The US district
judge deemed the payment as “incredibly underwhelming.”
