Facebook users will now be able to opt-out of the social network’s facial recognition technology following the discontinuation of a feature called ‘Tag Suggestions.’
The facial recognition technology Facebook utilizes has been available since December 2017. It notifies users when their profile photo gets used by someone or if they show up in photos that they have not been tagged in.
Reuters reported that Tag Suggestions, which uses facial recognition and only suggests a user to tag in photos, has been under a privacy related lawsuit since 2015.
The article indicated that the lawsuit alleges Facebook collected and stored the biometric data of millions of users without their consent, subsequently violating Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act.
The U.S. Federal Appeals Court rejected Facebook’s attempt to undo the class-action status of the lawsuit, Reuters reported.
It added that Facebook said that it always has “disclosed our use of face recognition technology and that people can turn it on or off at any time.”
Source: Reuters
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