Official Facebook was fined $ 650 million by the district court of northern California, United States.
The fine was imposed to settle a lawsuit over biometric data collection that has been going on since 2015.
Facebook is also required to pay $ 345 per person to its 1.6 million prosecuting users. The payment must be made “as soon as possible”.
According to US federal judge, James Donato. This fine is one of the largest fines in cases of privacy in the digital realm. This ruling is also a victory for consumers whose privacy is threatened.
“This decision is a big win for users who are fighting for their rights and privacy in the digital realm,” said Donato.
Regarding the verdict, Facebook also spoke up and agreed to pay the fine imposed.
“We are pleased that this lawsuit has been decided, so that we can move on to other matters for the benefit of the community and Facebook shareholders,” Facebook said in a statement.
Facebook was fined in 2009
was finedThis is not the first time Facebook has been fined. In 2019, Mark Zuckerberg’s company was fined $ 5 billion over the Cambridge Analytica data leak scandal.
For information, the case that ended in a $ 650 million fine began in 2015. At that time, Facebook was sued by a user in the Illinois, US region, because it had scanned and identified users’ faces in a photo via a tagging feature.
This feature is a polemic because it violates the privacy regulations in force in that country. What’s more, these various facial data were allegedly collected without the user’s knowledge or consent.
Facebook has repeatedly denied these allegations and claims that the data was taken based on user consent.
In addition, Facebook also said that users can actually turn off the tagging feature so that the system does not tag their photos.
“We are always transparent regarding the use of facial recognition technology and users can turn it on or off at any time,” said Facebook at that time.
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