Facebook Must Face Class-Action Lawsuit Over Facial Recognition, Says Judge (kfgo.com) 79
U.S. District Judge James Donato ruled on Monday that Facebook must face a class-action lawsuit alleging that the social network unlawfully used a facial recognition process on photos without user permission. Donato ruled that a class-action was the most efficient way to resolve the dispute over facial templates. KFGO reports: Facebook said it was reviewing the ruling. "We continue to believe the case has no merit and will defend ourselves vigorously," the company said in a statement. Lawyers for the plaintiffs could not immediately be reached for comment. Facebook users sued in 2015, alleging violations of an Illinois state law about the privacy of biometric information. The class will consist of Facebook users in Illinois for whom Facebook created and stored facial recognition algorithms after June 7, 2011, Donato ruled. That is the date when Facebook launched "Tag Suggestions," a feature that suggests people to tag after a Facebook user uploads a photo. In the U.S. court system, certification of a class is typically a major hurdle that plaintiffs in proposed class actions need to overcome before reaching a possible settlement or trial.
Good (Score:5, Funny)
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"If this is the kind of shoddy treatment companies can now expect in this country ..."
It's the kind of shoddy laws that old white men are creating, without any clue about modern life.
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Could they also be pissed enough to forbid accessing them from here?
Pretty please?
Doesn't google do face recognition on your photo (Score:2)
Is this the difference between doing it on the server: facebook, google, and on your own computer iTunes?
google is being sued too. (Score:2)
Google is also being sued under the same illinois law. Apple is not. Presumably this is because with apple it's you that is doing it to your own photos So it's you that would be culpable for gathering biometrics without consent
I wonder if this means you cant do any facial recognition research in Illinois? Sure there are face data banks but how do you know they are legal in Illinois.
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Their behaviour is completely unacceptable in any reasonable part of the world, and face recognition of people who are not even users falls into the sort of category associated with real WW2 Nazis.
Lets be reasonable here. its not the case that has no merit - its Facebook that has no merit.
When it comes to court, I hope they ar
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You're in luck!!! Facebook Premium includes access to the facial recognition features!!
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It is perfectly legal for me to look at a photo and recognize the people in the photo from my memory.
Why should it be illegal for the same thing to be done "on a computer"?
Are you intentionally being a dense idiot or are you really that stupid?
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I look forward to thousands of dollars, as a non Facebook member if they used facial recognition on me in other peoples photos and recorded it in a database about me. I think somewhere between fifty thousand and one hundred thousand dollars should be appropriate in punitive damages (punitive being punishment, not actual damages, not a member, no financial transactions, no data record allowed). The class action to spread from one country to another like a bush fire, and Facebook all burned down. Some countri
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I look forward to thousands of dollars, as a non Facebook member if they used facial recognition on me in other peoples photos and recorded it in a database about me.
If you didn't take the photos, then you have no copyright over them, and no say in what is done with them.
What law do you think Facebook is violating?
The plaintiffs are trying to use an Illinois state law on biometrics, but that is a real stretch, and even if they win, the ruling may only apply if the processing or storage is done in Illinois, which is unlikely.
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Facebook didn't collect the information.
If there is metadata that wasn't in the original, how did the photographer do it?
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If you're running the algorithm on data you have no right to run it on, yes.
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If you're running the algorithm on data you have no right to run it on, yes.
Who has the right to grant those rights? According to the plaintiffs, it is not the person who took the photograph and thus owns the copyright, but the person displayed in the image.
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
The EU has harmonized rules for personal data protection, which include a prohibition on the collection of biometric data without explicit permission from the subject. That includes facial recognition data.
So yes, in this case running that algorithm without the subject's permission is illegal.
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"If you didn't take the photos, then you have no copyright over them, and no say in what is done with them."
Did they sign a model release?
Do you even basic photography law?
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Did they sign a model release?
A model release is needed for commercial use of your likeness, not running an algorithm on the pixel data.
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Fakebook IS making commercial use of the data.
The lawsuit is not questioning Facebook's right to display the images, and running an algorithm on pixels is not a form of commercial use that requires a model release.
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The lawsuit is not questioning Facebook's right to display the images
Exactly. The lawsuit is questioning facebooks commercial use of the "biometric" (*) information gathered from the images.
(*) Facial geometry sold for use in commercial facial recognition applications.
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Exactly. The lawsuit is questioning facebooks commercial use of the "biometric" (*) information gathered from the images.
Nope. The plaintiffs' case is based on an Illinois law that says nothing about "commercial use".
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Fakebook IS making commercial use of the data.
The lawsuit is not questioning Facebook's right to display the images, and running an algorithm on pixels is not a form of commercial use that requires a model release.
We're getting to broad brushing some stuff about model releases here.In a public place, a person has no particular privacy. As well if the image was newsworthy.
Even then, the law is not absolute. If say an attractive woman model is shown sitting at a bar with a bottle of liquor, and used in an advertisement for that liquor, a standard model release is sufficient. If someone uses that same photo in an article about a troubling rise in alcoholic women, or about prostitutes working in bars, the photographer
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My right to my picture. Yes, such a thing exists in European law: Your face is yours, and only yours, and anyone wanting to take a picture of it needs your permission to do so. There are some exceptions like for celebrities, or when the picture taken is about, say, a building and you just happen to be in the picture and not in focus, but in general, if you want to do ANYTHING with a picture that has me on it, you need my ok.
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Yes, such a thing exists in European law: Your face is yours, and only yours, and anyone wanting to take a picture of it needs your permission to do so.
Bullcrap. There is no such "European law". There are laws in specific EU countries, but they vary. In general, you can photograph people in public without their explicit consent.
if you want to do ANYTHING with a picture that has me on it, you need my ok.
More bullcrap. If I take your photo legally, there is no European law prohibiting modification, with a few narrow exceptions such as pornography.
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Slightly true.
The general process is that there is a "European directive" - which is essentially guidance as to what each European country should enact, and then they do so, in line with local practicality and custom, at the pace they are comfortable with.
However, in the case of data protection, the GDPR (Google is your fiend), will apply from 25 May 2018*, all across Europe, including the UK, even after Brexit. Penalties are EUR25Million or 4% of your global turnover.
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My right to my picture. Yes, such a thing exists in European law: Your face is yours, and only yours, and anyone wanting to take a picture of it needs your permission to do so. There are some exceptions like for celebrities, or when the picture taken is about, say, a building and you just happen to be in the picture and not in focus, but in general, if you want to do ANYTHING with a picture that has me on it, you need my ok.
There are exceptions at least here in the US. Out n the streets, or newsworthy events, and you don't have much say.
Am I to take it however, that in Europe pictures of say a crowd at a football game or Festival are illegal?
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... but the creation of new metadata.
So there are criminal algorithms? I realize that we are all supposed to hate Facebook, so everyone is cheering for the plaintiffs, but is it really a good idea for particular matrix operations on an array of pixels to be illegal?
If the photo is online, then the "identifiable information" is already public.
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And if music is for sale, it's already public too. You think the RIAA thinks it's ok if I start using it in the way I want to?
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I look forward to my free years' worth of Facebook Premium (tm) as compensation. (/s)
That's a strange way to write "free 60 day subscription followed by an opt-out monthly subscription".
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You are not trying hard enough.
Or in the parlance of the geek vernacular, the only way to win is not to play.
For those in Rio Linda. Stay off the internet.
If you do not understand that, just go back to watching YouTube.
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Nuke from high orbit - its the only way to be sure.
FB going sour on folks? (Score:2)
Am I alone? Facebook is starting to get attributes of a product, once desirable, that is now really beginning to go bad.
Some would read this as "getting rotten."
Does ANYONE think this lawsuit is a solution? (Score:2)
I'm certainly willing to stipulate that Facebook has many gigantic problems. I would even say that my images, including my face, are part of my personal information that is being horrendously abused by Facebook. However, it is obvious to me that the lawyers are more concerned with creating new problems than solving anything.
My suggestion for a solution approach would be a rather different: A non-adversarial business model for Facebook. Rather than pitting us against the advertisers, which guarantees the adv
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Except images containing you are not necessarily yours. They are legally property of the person that took the picture. By uploading an image they owned the owner agreed to have the facial recognition algorithm to be run on it.
...says the AC who's never actually looked at the Facial Recognition permission setting in Facebook:
Face Recognition
Do you want Facebook to be able to recognize you in photos and videos?
Note that it doesn't say, "Do you want Facebook to be able to recognize anyone in the photos and videos posted by you", or, "Do you want Facebook to be able to recognize you in the photos and videos posted by you".
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The issue is being tagged in pictures taken by others, I thought.
Not tagging; face recognition, which is not the same thing. You can't stop anyone from tagging you, but as noted upthread, if you deny Face Recognition permission, they say they won't run their recognition algorithm on you, regardless of who posts your picture.
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It isn't. But it's one more nail in the coffin, I hope.
You won't convince people to ditch something harmful if you have one huge story about how it fucks up lives. But if you keep the stories coming and if you can give them something else to read about it every day, eventually they'll catch on.
Dear Facebook... (Score:1)
FB Great Idea (Score:1)
Facebook is a publicity service (Score:1)
As long as there's been cameras, there's been the thorny issue of owning the brand/copyright versus owning the image. This is why all social networks don't touch copyright and their ownership of the upload is non-exclusive.
Facebook is a publicity service, helping people find you. It's why Facebook hides and repeatedly resets/deletes privacy settings; it is contrary to the point of the service; and thus their profits. This is a problem when users think they can have privacy: In fact, any claim by Faceboo
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It's kinda sad when the only sweet words you get to hear is from a stalker who wants to sell you to the highest bidder.
How can this possibly be illegal? (Score:2)
If you are allowed to recognize people on a photo someone shows you — without the pictured people's permission — how can it possibly be illegal for Facebook or anyone else to do that?
That said, a class-action lawsuit may, indeed, be the best way to solve this question...
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It may be a way to solve the question, I am petty sure nuking from high orbit is a better one.
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And how is that illegal? If someone shows me your photo, and tells me the names of everyone pictured, why can't I "monetize" this knowledge?