A U.S. federal judge ruled on Monday that Facebook must face a class action lawsuit alleging that the social network unlawfully used a facial recognition process on photos without user permission. A link has been sent to your friend's email address. A link has been posted to your Facebook feed. A U.S. federal judge ruled on Monday that Facebook must face a class action lawsuit alleging that the social network unlawfully used a facial recognition process on photos without user permission.

Facebook will have to face a class action lawsuit over privacy concerns about the company's facial recognition software, a federal judge ruled Monday.

The class will consist of Facebook users in Illinois for whom Facebook created and stored facial recognition algorithms after June 7, 2011, Donato ruled. That is the date when Facebook launched "Tag Suggestions," a feature that suggests people to tag after a Facebook user uploads a photo.