Facebook's newest privacy problem - FACEPRINT data

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Facebook knows you so well these days that it can recognize you just by seeing your face. You may not have a problem with this, but that doesn't mean it's all good in the eyes of the law.

The social network lost the first round of a lawsuit on Thursday in which it is accused of "unlawfully" storing biometric data mined from people's photographs. The company was seeking to have the suit dismissed, but a federal judge in California rejected the request.

Facebook taps into its photo-tagging system to build up a geometric representation of people's faces to create something called a faceprint for each of its users. Faceprints are then used to suggest tags for people when new photos are uploaded to the network. The practice is outlined in the company's data policy, and users can opt out of having their face data collected.

One could argue that the clue is in the name, but many Facebook users probably don't know that they agree to having data about their face stored when they sign up. A group of Facebook users from Illinois has taken particular issue with this, accusing the social network of violating the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act for not seeking explicit consent to collect identifiers based on their physical features. If the law sides with the Illinois users, Facebook and other companies such as Google, which also uses facial recognition tech, might need to revisit their user agreements.

More at the link:

[link to www.cnet.com]

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It's not really something new; it's been a part of social media for some time now. But still.....