Facebook is facing allegations that it illegally harvests biometric data of users through its popular photo sharing app, Instagram.
Last month, the social media company offered to pay $650 million to settle a lawsuit brought against them for harvesting biometric data through a photo tagging tool on Facebook.
“The new lawsuit was filed this week in Redwood City, California. The company has been accused of collecting, storing and profiting from the biometric data of more than 100 million instagram users without their knowledge or consent,” A Bloomberg report says.
If found guilty of violating the privacy of its users, Facebook will be expected to pay $1000 per violation “or $ 5000 if it is found to have acted recklessly or intentionally.”
Read: Facebook Launches Financial Division To Run Payment Services
Instagram recently rolled out its new feature, Reels, on the platform. The feature is a clone of the popular Chinese app, TikTok, which allows users to make short videos with music covers. Users can share their Reels on the feed and for those with public accounts, their Reels will also show on the ‘explore’ page, which Instagram is revamping to give it more prominence.
Following the launch, Facebook’s shares saw a 6.5 per cent surge increasing the Network’s value which has grown by about 30 percent this year. The Coronavirus pandemic has increased the use of social media with many users observing lockdowns and travel restrictions.
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