Meta Sued Over Use of User Photos to Train AI — SkimNews
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- Parents and children in Illinois and California filed a federal class action in Chicago alleging Meta illegally used their Facebook and Instagram photos to build NameTag, an unreleased face-recognition system for Meta's smart glasses, and to train generative AI models including Emu and Muse Image.
- The proposed class action alleges the company violated Illinois and California privacy laws by extracting biometric information from photos without notice or consent; the national class could number in the millions and reaches back to September 4, 2021.
- WIRED reported in June that NameTag code had been secretly embedded in the Meta glasses AI companion app, downloaded more than 50 million times, designed to convert faces captured by the glasses into biometric signatures compared against so-called faceprints stored on the user's phone.
- The complaint cites Meta employees who claimed NameTag could recognize people through their Meta connections or public Instagram accounts, and references a company patent describing face matching against profile photos and other images held by Meta.
- Muse Image, released this summer, drew earlier criticism for letting users generate images from other people's public Instagram accounts — a feature Meta removed within days, saying it had 'missed the mark.'
- Plaintiffs seek $5,000 per intentional or reckless violation under Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act, $1,000 per negligent violation, and injunctive relief; California claims seek additional damages.
- Meta previously paid $650 million in 2020 to settle an Illinois class action over an earlier face-recognition system and $1.4 billion in 2024 to resolve Texas allegations that it had unlawfully collected biometric data.
Why it matters: Meta has paid $650 million (Illinois, 2020) and $1.4 billion (Texas, 2024) to settle prior biometric privacy suits — yet now faces a class action that could reach millions more users over its AI training practices. With BIPA damages of $5,000 per intentional violation stacked across a multi-million-person class, Meta's potential exposure could dwarf its previous settlements if the plaintiffs survive Meta's likely motion to dismiss.
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