Page 24 - ARUBA TODAY

A24 TECHNOLOGY
Monday 10 February 2020
Unique Illinois privacy law leads to $550M Facebook deal

By KATHLEEN FOODY these tech companies." Edelson's firm and others gative reports by The New than line the pockets of
Associated Press Although the buying and that focus on class-action York Times and Buzzfeed. class action attorneys," Di-
CHICAGO (AP) — Adam selling of consumer data suits were first, accusing Although there are Illinois ers said in a statement.
Pezen, Carlo Licata and Facing Illinois' law, some
Nimesh Patel are among companies opt out of the
millions of people who have state. Sony, for instance, re-
been tagged in Facebook fuses to sell its "aibo" robot
photos at some point in the dog to Illinois residents and
past decade, sometimes says the device's ability to
at the suggestion of an au- behave differently toward
tomated tagging feature individual people depends
powered by facial recogni- on facial recognition tech-
tion technology. nology.
It was their Illinois addresses, Backers of the law argue
though, that put the trio's that it's not difficult to com-
names atop a lawsuit that ply — simply tell consumers
Facebook recently agreed you plan to use biometric
to settle for $550 million, data and get their consent.
which could lead to pay- State Rep. Ann Williams, a
outs of a couple hundred Chicago Democrat, said
dollars to several million Illi- the ability to sue is critical
nois users of the social net- for consumers facing glob-
working site. al companies that make
The lawsuit — one of more billions of dollars per year.
than 400 filed against tech "If the penalty's only a fine,
companies big and small in that's the cost of doing
the past five years, by one business for them," Williams
law firm's count — alleges In this May 4, 2016, file photo, Illinois Rep. Ann Williams, D-Chicago, speaks to reporters at the said. "A settlement like (the
that Facebook broke Illinois' Illinois State Capitol in Springfield, Ill. Adam Pezen, Carlo Licata and Nimesh Patel are among the Facebook case), we're
billions of Facebook users who use the site to keep up with friends.
strict biometric privacy law Associated Press talking about real money
that allows people to sue that will go to consumers."
companies that fail to get Attorneys who defend
consent before harvesting has become a multi-billion- Facebook of failing to meet lawsuits against other ma- smaller companies, though,
consumers' data, includ- dollar industry, Illinois' law — Illinois' standard in multiple jor tech companies, includ- argue that the law should
ing through facial and fin- the Biometric Information lawsuits filed in 2015. The ing Google, Snapchat and be narrowed to permit the
gerprint scanning. Privacy Privacy Act — predates three Illinois men fronting Shutterfly, the vast majority use of fingerprint scanners
advocates hail the law as even Facebook's iconic the class-action suit against of the cases are filed on to track employees' hours.
the nation's strongest form "like" feature and was a re- Facebook said they were behalf of employees who "Small and medium-size
of protection in the com- action to a single compa- never told that the site's were directed to use fin- businesses really do not
mercial use of such data, ny's flop. photo tagging system used gerprint scanning systems have the resources to de-
and it has survived ongoing Pay By Touch, a startup facial recognition technol- to track their work hours fend these cases or pay
efforts by the tech indus- that teamed with grocery ogy to analyze photos then and who accuse employ- some big settlement," said
try and other businesses to stores to offer fingerprint- create and store "face ers or the systems' creators Mary Smigielski, a partner
weaken it. Attorneys who based payments, had templates." of failing to get their prior at Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard &
focus on privacy law pre- gone bankrupt and was A federal judge later consent. Smith and a co-leader of
dict that the Facebook set- expected to auction off its grouped the cases to- Illinois is one of three states the firm's group focused on
tlement — if approved by a assets, including its data- gether as a class-action on that have laws governing Illinois' biometric law.
federal judge — will trigger base of users' information. behalf of Illinois Facebook the use of biometric data. The Facebook case wound
a new round of lawsuits and Worried about where that users who were among the But the other two, Texas through courtrooms in Il-
make the targets of existing user data would wind up, stored face templates as of and Washington, don't per- linois and California for
ones more likely to settle. Il- Illinois lawmakers quickly June 7, 2011. mit individual lawsuits, in- nearly five years before last
linois' legal landscape also passed a law in 2008 re- Facebook only changed stead delegating enforce- month's announcement
could shape debates over quiring companies to get the technology last year. ment to their attorneys of a settlement, days after
privacy protection in other consent before collecting The tag suggestion tool was general. The state's Cham- the U.S. Supreme Court de-
states and in Congress, biometric information and replaced a broader facial ber of Commerce and clined to hear arguments.
particularly about whether to create a policy specify- recognition setting, which is tech industry groups have Edelson said he hopes that
individuals should have the ing how that information turned off by default. backed amendments to the $550 million deal, which
right to sue over violations. will be retained and when The Illinois law is the basis gut Illinois' allowance of in- lawyers on the case de-
"We're going to see a lot of it will be destroyed. for two recent suits filed dividual lawsuits or exempt scribed as a record amount
constituents saying, 'Why It also gave Illinois residents against Clearview AI, a fa- time-keeping systems. for a privacy claim, will put
not me?'" said Jay Edelson, the right to sue for $1,000 cial recognition company Illinois' law puts "litigation pressure on attorneys to
a Chicago attorney whose over negligent violations that harvests images by over innovation," said Ty- refuse credit monitoring
firm first sued Facebook for and $5,000 for intentional scraping social media sites ler Diers, the Illinois and or negligible cash pay-
allegedly breaking Illinois' violations. and other places and then Midwest executive direc- outs that are more typical
law. "This settlement, it's For years, "literally noth- sells access to its database tor of the industry group in agreements to resolve
going to really make the ing happened," said John to law enforcement agen- TechNet, whose members data privacy suits.
point that having laws on Fitzgerald, a Chicago attor- cies. include Apple, Facebook People eligible for the set-
the books is the difference ney and author of a book Facebook, Twitter, Venmo and Google. tlement will be contacted
between people getting on the law that is due out and YouTube have all de- "This case exemplifies why directly and don't need to
to go to court and getting this year. He couldn't find manded that Clearview consumer privacy law take any action until then,
real relief, and otherwise any record of a case filed stop harvesting their users' should empower state reg- attorneys on the case
just getting trampled by before 2015. images following investi- ulators to enforce rather said.q