Some Frowning Over Facebook’s Biometric Data About — What Else? — Your Face

facebook_biometric_face_scan
Creative Commons / Pixabay
facebook_biometric_face_scan
Creative Commons / Pixabay

Some Frowning Over Facebook’s Biometric Data About — What Else? — Your Face

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For a while now, Facebook has been crunching the data about the faces of its billion-plus users. That’s how the company makes recommendations for who is in a particular photo even before a user decides whether to tag someone. (I guess we all should have seen this coming. After all, it is called Facebook.)

To some, the recommendation to tag a friend or family member is a cool, gee-whiz feature, but to others it feels like a breach of privacy.

Three Illinois residents are suing Facebook in a class action over the issue. They argue that the tech giant has run afoul of the state’s law regarding biometric data. We break down the case with Northwestern law professor Jim Speta, an expert on telecommunications and internet policy.