Facebook began issuing $ 397 worth of checks to 1,5 million Illinois residents as part of a class action lawsuit against it.
More than one and a half million Illinois residents will this week receive a $397 settlement payment from Facebook. This compensation is a result of the legal dispute that began in 2015 over the system of adding tags to her photos platformand which essentially used facial recognition.
Seven years ago, the class-action lawsuit against Facebook was first filed, accusing the company of violating state privacy laws that prohibit Companies να συλλέγουν βιομετρικά δεδομένα χωρίς να ενημερώνουν τους χρήστες. Η πλατφόρμα έχει αντιμετωπίσει έκτοτε ευρεία, παγκόσμια κριτική για τη χρήση της technology face recognition.
Η litigation ended last March, with the definition of compensation reaching $ 650 million. And so Meta completely stopped the practice of face recognition on Facebook and Instagram. Nevertheless, as noted by Vox, the company has not promised to avoid face recognition in future products.
The problem was the old Facebook photo tagging system, which relied on face recognition to identify users in photos and videos. Lawyers representing Illinois residents argued that the platform's "Suggested Labels" feature violated the state's biometric information privacy law.
So any Facebook user in Illinois who posted a photo or tagged himself on the platform during a certain period of time could file a claim. Nearly 1,6 million Illinois residents were included in the lawsuit.
And after a year from the final decision in 2021, Facebook started paying !! Some Redditors reported receiving their checks this week by direct deposit or by mail. However, the payment has not been completed yet. There are still residents who have not received anything.
Those who received their check from the post office were a little carried away by the appearance of the envelope. Specifically, reports a user on Reddit: “Honestly, I almost threw away my check. Sent in a brown envelope from recycled paper. It was like a paper bag. I thought for sure it was spam."
