Court okays class action against Facebook over facial recognition software
By Jerod MacDonald-Evoy | Arizona Mirror
A recent 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling on a case brought by residents of Illinois against social media giant Facebook over its use of facial recognition software could reignite conversations at the Arizona Capitol on biometric data security in the Grand Canyon State.
The ruling allows a lawsuit to proceed against Facebook for allegedly violating Illinois’ biometric data privacy law. The court affirmed that the case could become a class action suit.
The residents of Illinois bringing the suit are using a law the state passed – one of only three of its kind in the nation – that provides additional protections for biometric data.
The Biometric Information Privacy Act, or BIPA for short, became Illinois law in 2008 and has inspired similar laws in Texas and Washington. However, Illlinois is the only state whose law allows for private individuals to file a lawsuit for damages stemming from a violation of the law.
A bill proposed earlier this year by the top Republican in the Arizona House of Representatives, House Speaker Rusty Bowers, sought to go further than the Illinois law. The measure, House Bill 2478, earned approval by a House committee but never received consideration by the full House.
Bowers’s bill would have imposed fines up to $10,000 per violation, compared to fines ranging from $1,000 to $5,000 in Illinois. The Arizona proposal also would have allowed individuals to sue companies that fail to comply with the security standards, and would have given the Arizona attorney general the authority to investigate.
