It started out as a neat feature where people could tag different friends’ faces to get identifications made in photos uploaded to Facebook.
It ended up being an expensive project for the social media giant, as U.S. courts continue to resolve a challenge by the state of Illinois under its BIPA act protecting residents’ biometric privacy.
Here’s where we are today: Reuters is reporting that the court in question is prepared to accept a $650 million valuation for a settlement, after Judge James Donato rejected Facebook’s previous offer of $550 million.
“The Illinois Legislature said this is meant to be an expensive violation,” Donato said during a preliminary settlement approval hearing, as reported at the time by Nicholas Iovino at Courthouse News.
Today, Ann Maria Shibu at Reuters reports that the additional hundred million dollars “resolved the court’s concerns” and that an approval hearing is pending.
All of this highlights the real controversies around facial recognition technology and its applications in various sectors. We’ve already seen law enforcement departments say ‘no thank you’ to invasive facial recognition for crime-fighting. Now it’s become clear that companies operating vast user platforms can’t just create facial recognition features with carte blanche. Back in September 2019, tech media reported Facebook backpedaling in the form of opt-out provisions for the feature.
“Starting today, people who newly join Facebook or who previously had the tag suggestions setting will have the face recognition setting and will receive information about how it works,” said Srinivas Narayanan, applied research lead at Facebook AI, according to reporting by Lindsey O-Donnell at ThreatPost Sept. 3. “Our face recognition setting lets you manage not only whether Facebook uses face recognition technology on photos of you in order to suggest tags; it provides an easy on or off switch for a broader set of uses of face recognition, such as helping you protect your identity on Facebook.”
So, no more of this kind of tagging, without proper controls. And over halfa billion dollars as a mea culpa.
At the same time, Facebook is involved in ongoing U.S. antitrust investigations. Where does all of this lead Zuckerberg and crew? For one thing, the regulatory activities are an unusual check on the free market reach and powers of something that began as a humble application for college dorm dwelling.
In other words, look at Facebook’s current valuation, user base and brand appeal – but look also at its liabilities!
