Facebook to cough up $550M to users in Illinois as part of privacy settlement

The social media giant disclosed that it had come to a tentative agreement over a 2015 lawsuit that alleged the company violated Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act each time it stored a person's facial data to then notify them about photographs posted on the platform.

"When you would upload a photo, it would suggest who was in that photo and it was using facial recognition technology to do that," said Christoper Dore, partner attorney at Edelson PC.

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The state's Biometric Information Privacy Act imposes a fine of $1,000 for each violation, and $5,000 if it's proven the defendant willfully neglected the law, but that standard is difficult to prove.

Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act prohibits businesses, governments or other entities from storing a person's biometric information, fingerprints, facial shape, or otherwise, without their explicit positive permission. It also sets other requirements for the storage of that information.''