Facebook asks court to dismiss face recognition lawsuit

Social media giant Facebook has struck back against lawsuits claiming that its tag feature violated privacy laws, asking a California court to dismiss the suits.In its motion, Facebook writes that the plaintiffs cannot pursue a claim under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act because they agreed that California law governs their disputes with Facebook.Facebook had the facial recognition suits transferred to California in August – a move that was supported by attorneys for the plaintiffs.Nonetheless, in its motion to dismiss, Facebook writes that collecting Information from photographs does not constitute a “scan of hand or face geometry” within the meaning of the Illinois' BIPA.”Even if plaintiffs were entitled to bring claims under the Illinois BIPA, those claims would fail because they are barred by the plain language of the statute, which expressly excludes from the definitions of “biometric identifier” and “biometric information” (i) photographs and (ii) any information derived from those photographs.”In its conclusion, Facebook writes: “[The] plaintiffs' complaint rests on an erroneous construction of the BIPA that is barred by the plain language of the statute and cannot be squared with either the General Assembly's express findings or the statute's legislative history. Because plaintiffs cannot cure these defects, the Court should dismiss these consolidated cases with prejudice”.The case, raised by plaintiff Frederick William Gullen, was outlined in a complaint filed on 31 August.In the document, Gullen said he seeks “this action for damages and other legal and equitable remedies resulting from the illegal actions of Facebook in collecting, storing and using Plaintiff's and other similarly situated individuals' biometric identifiers ߪ without informed written consent in violation of the BIPA”.Gullen claims that Facebook's tag feature is in violation of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). Similar suit have been launched this year by the plaintiffs Carlo Licata, Adam Pezen and Nimesh Patel. Developed by Face.com, a company Facebook acquired, the tagging system uses facial recognition technology to recognize people in photos posted by users.Licata's complaint, for instance, alleges the company was “calculatedly elusive” in introducing the system to its users, and did not offer a release from users authorizing the collection of their “faceprints,” or a readily available policy describing how Facebook will retain or potentially destroy users' biometric data.Plaintiffs have asked the judge to create a class of users, which could number in the millions, and award damages of $5,000 per violation.

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