Global: Meta Prevails in Biometric Privacy Lawsuit Involving Facebook Non-Users

Meta Platforms Inc. has emerged victorious in a class action lawsuit concerning biometric privacy violations, which alleged that the company collected biometric information from Illinois residents who did not have Facebook accounts through its Tag Suggestion feature, violating the Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA).

On Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit dismissed the lawsuit on technical grounds. The court ruled that “face signatures,” which are numerical representations derived from scanned images to identify faces, do not qualify as “biometric identifiers” under the statutory definition of BIPA.

The appellate court’s decision aligns with a previous summary judgment favoring Meta by a lower district court but differs in legal interpretation. According to the court’s 20-page order, as reported by Courthouse News, the district court’s rationale focused on the impracticality of Meta complying with BIPA if it had to obtain consent from every individual whose photo was uploaded to Facebook before using Tag Suggestions. However, the Ninth Circuit emphasized that BIPA’s plain text applies strictly to biometric identifiers or information held by Facebook users, excluding face signatures from this category.

Illinois’ biometric privacy law specifically defines “biometric identifier” as encompassing retina or iris scans, fingerprints, voiceprints, or scans of hand or face geometry. Notably, photographs are explicitly excluded from this definition.

Meanwhile, Meta has already initiated payments related to a separate privacy settlement involving Instagram users in Illinois. Following the resolution of a class-action lawsuit alleging privacy violations, Meta has begun distributing funds from a $68.5 million settlement to individuals who used Instagram in Illinois between August 10, 2015, and August 16, 2023. Claimants were required to submit claims by September 27, 2023, to qualify for a portion of the settlement, with individual payouts reportedly averaging $32.56, as reported by KXLH and My Stateline.

The rulings and settlements underscore ongoing legal challenges and compliance issues faced by tech giants like Meta in navigating privacy regulations, particularly concerning biometric data, within the U.S. regulatory framework.