Does Facebook's facial scanning technology violate privacy law? Site faces hearing this week over automatic tagging of people in photos

While Facebook's facial recognition technology may be useful for tagging photos, some user believe that it violates their privacy. The gathering of this biometric data is the subject of a lawsuit filed against the social network in May, under a unique Illinois law. The Biometric Information Privacy Act allows for fines of between $1,000 (£818) and $5,000 (£4,092) each time a person's image is used without permission. Facebook could be in hot water over its facial recognition software. The social media giant was accused of violating users' privacy by collecting and storing biometric data without permission in order to make tagging suggestions Facebook has repeatedly faced criticism for removing posts that were said to violate its community standards.