New allegations are faced by Facebook that it illegally harvests user’s biometric data and the lawsuit this time targets the company’s photo-sharing app, Instagram. In the beginning of this year Facebook ha started informing Instagram users that it was collecting biometric data, according to the suit.
Facebook Inc. has offered to pay $650 million last month, to settle the lawsuit which was accused of collecting biometric data illegally through a photo-tagging tool provided to Facebook users. The Lawsuit filed on Monday, in the State Court in Redwood City, California that the company Facebook Inc. is accused of collecting, storing and making a profit from the biometric data of about more than 100 million users of Instagram, without their knowledge or consent.
Since 2011, An Illinois resident named Kelly Whalen was using Instagram regularly alleged in her complaint that a state privacy law that bars the unauthorized collection of biometric data which is violated by the photo-sharing apps. Under this law, a company can be to pay between $1,000-$5,000 per violation if found to have acted recklessly or intentionally.
Stephanie Otway, a spokesperson from Facebook said in an emailed statement,
“This suit is baseless, Instagram doesn’t use face recognition technology.”
Online Data Policy of Instagram on face recognition stated, “If we introduce face-recognition technology to your Instagram experience, we will let you know first, and you will have control over whether we use this technology for you.”