Jeffrey D. Neuburger of Proskauer Rose LLP writes:
This past week, a California district court again declined Facebook’s motion to dismiss an ongoing litigation involving claims under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, 740 Ill. Comp Stat. 14/1 (“BIPA”), surrounding Tag Suggestions, its facial recognition-based system of photo tagging. In 2016, the court declined to dismiss the action based upon, among other things, Facebook’s contention that BIPA categorically excludes digital photographs from its scope. This time around, the court declined to dismiss the plaintiffs’ complaint for lack of standing under the Supreme Court’s 2016 Spokeo decision on the ground that plaintiffs have failed to allege a concrete injury in fact. (Patel v. Facebook, Inc., No. 15-03747 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 26, 2018) (cases consolidated at In re Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litig., No. 15-03747 (N.D. Cal.)). As a result, Facebook will be forced to continue to litigate this action.
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