Facebook Gets Initial Court Approval To Settle Biometrics Privacy Lawsuit For $650M

Facebook Inc. FB received a federal court's preliminary approval for a $650 million settlement related to a lawsuit that alleged the social media giant gathered biometric data of millions of its users without their consent, Reuters reported Wednesday. 

What Happened: The Mark Zuckerberg-led company had raised the settlement offer by $100 million in July, which led to the grant of the preliminary approval, according to Reuters. 

Judge James Donato of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California has reportedly set a final approval hearing for Jan. 7 next year.

Why It Matters: The social media behemoth was accused of violating an Illinois law related to Biometrics privacy through its “Tag Suggestions” feature, which let users recognize their Facebook friends from their uploaded photos, Reuters noted.

Last week, the social media company was sued in California under the same Illinois law for capturing biometric data of its Instagram platform users, according to Bloomberg. 

The Biometric Information Privacy Act of 2008 has also been used by Illinois residents to sue Amazon.com, Inc AMZN, Alphabet Inc GOOGL GOOG, and Microsoft Corporation MSFT in the recent past for allegedly using photos of individuals to train their facial recognition technologies without prior consent. 

Price Action: Facebook shares closed almost unchanged at $262.59 on Wednesday and fell about 0.2% in the after-hours session.