California judge allows Illinois Facebook lawsuit to proceed

A federal judge in California has ruled that three Illinois men can proceed with their class-action lawsuit challenging Facebook's facial recognition software used to identify people in uploaded photos. Adam Pezen, Carlo Licata and Nimesh Patel, all of the Chicago area, separately sued the social media giant last year, the Chicago Tribune reported (http://trib.in/1USAw5s The cases were combined and transferred last summer to the Northern District of California court. The men allege that Facebook was illegally collecting biometric data from people "tagged" in photos posted by other users and that its use of facial recognition software violates Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act. In 2008, Illinois enacted the Biometric Information Privacy Act to regulate how individuals, companies and organizations can collect and use biometric data, which determine a person's identity based on unique biological or physical characteristics.