Instagram Accused of illegally harvesting biometric data

Facebook, owner of Instagram, is facing a lawsuit over the proof of the harvest of users’ biometric data, according to Bloomberg.

Last month, Facebook offered to pay a $ 650 million settlement in a similar lawsuit in which it was accused of illegally collecting biometric data through Facebook’s Facebook tagging feature. The scheme has not yet been approved by the judge, but if it is, users could be charged up to $ 400 each.

The new case was filed Monday in California state court. Facebook was specifically accused of collecting, storing and profiting from the biometric data of more than 100 million Instagram users. Of crucial importance, users did not give permission and were unaware of this alleged data harvest. Users were only made aware of biometric data collection on Instagram earlier this year, but it is believed to have happened a while earlier.

The lawsuit adds that unauthorized collection of biometric data would be a violation of Illinois privacy law, in which case Facebook could be forced to pay up to $ 5000 per violation. Facebook did not respond to a request for comment Bloomberg.