A federal judge yesterday rejected Facebook’s request to throw out a lawsuit that alleges the company “secretly amassed the world’s largest privately held database of consumer biometric data.”
The dispute centers around a feature added in 2010 that allows Facebook users to tag themselves, and others, in photos uploaded to the social media site. The complaint cites an Illinois law that requires consent on the part of the users involved, consent that Facebook failed to ask for.
Facebook argued that users had the ability to opt out at any time and that the information derived from photographs wasn’t covered by the law.
A federal judge denied Facebook’s request to throw out the case, so now it’s on to trial.
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“We look forward to the continued prosecution of the action, and ultimately proving our case at trial,” according to a joint statement by law firms Edelson PC, Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP and Labaton Sucharow.
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