Instagram faces fresh lawsuit over illegal harvesting of biometrics

Social media platform Instagram, owned by tech giant Facebook, is facing a fresh lawsuit over illegal harvesting of biometrics.

The company is accused of collecting, storing and profiting from the biometric data of more than 100 million Instagram users, without their knowledge or consent in a new lawsuit, filed in state court in Redwood City, California.

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According to the Illinois privacy law, unauthorised collection of biometric data is barred. Under the law, a company can be forced to pay $1,000 per violation, or $5,000 if it was found to have acted recklessly or intentionally.

Facebook started informing Instagram users at the beginning of this year that it was collecting the biometric data, according to the suit.

Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment, made after regular business hours.

Last month, the social media company offered to pay $650 million to settle a lawsuit in which it was accused of illegally collecting biometric data through a photo-tagging tool provided to Facebook users.