Federal Judge Nixes Facebook's Move To Dismiss Suit Over Photo Tagging Case

A federal judge in San Francisco rejected Facebook's request to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Illinois users alleging the social media company “amassed users’ biometric data secretly and without consent.” U.S. District Judge James Donato in his Thursday ruling (in Pacer) also dismissed the company’s request for summary judgment, saying if California law is applied -- which Facebook wanted -- then Illinois' policy protecting its citizens' privacy interests in their biometric data "would be written out of existence." The ruling means the case will proceed under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act. About a year ago, plaintiffs Carlo Licata, Nimesh Patel and Adam Pezen filed three separate suits, later consolidated and the case transferred to California. The three claim Facebook “automatically enrolled millions of Illinoisans” into its "Tag Suggestions" program, launched in 2010, which uses advanced facial recognition technology to identify people in users' uploaded photographs. Facebook argued the definition of “biometric identifier” and “biometric information” in the Illinois statute excludes photos and information derived from those photos. It said it gets all its biometric data “exclusively” from uploaded photographs. Donato has scheduled a case management conference for June 15. Facebook didn't comment Friday.