Boston law firm offers reward for proof that Facebook has shared or sold biometric data with third parties

The Leonard Law Office LLP has offered a $5,000 reward to anyone who can provide verifiable and credible information leading to the successful prosecution of a class action lawsuit against Facebook regarding its use, collection, or storage of biometric data.

According to the Boston firm’s website, Leonard Law Office LLP is focused on consumer protection, and is specifically looking for proof that Facebook has shared or sold biometric data with third parties.

Reported previously in BiometricUpdate.com, this is not the first time Facebook’s use of biometric data has been called into question.

in 2012, German data privacy authorities re-opened a probe into Facebook and its use of facial recognition to determine if the company was violating privacy protection laws in Europe.

Soon after, Facebook agreed to remove facial recognition data collected from its user base within the European Union.

The social network has also recently announced that its facial recognition feature for automatic tag suggestions has been re-enabled for U.S. users.

Reported in BiometricUpdate.com, the Irish data protection commissioner, along with a German data protection regulator confirmed that Facebook had deleted all European facial recognition data after viewing the social network’s source code.

“We recently reviewed the source code and execution process used in the deletion process and can confirm that we were satisfied with the processes used by Facebook to delete the templates in line with its commitments,” Ciara O’Sullivan, spokeswoman for the Office of the Irish Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) said in an email reported by CFO World.

Article Topics

biometric database  |  Facebook  |  facial recognition  |  regulation