Facebook Face-Scan Fight Nears Trial With Billions at Stake

  • U.S. Court of Appeals upholds ruling allowing group lawsuit
  • Trial over feature may spotlight Facebook’s privacy practices
Photographer: Johannes Berg/Bloomberg
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Facebook Inc. failed to undo a ruling that allows millions of its users to band together in a lawsuit accusing the social network of gathering and storing biometric data without consent, potentially exposing the company to billions of dollars in damages.

A federal appeals court in San Francisco on Thursday rejected the company’s request to block the privacy suit from proceeding as a class action on behalf of Illinois Facebook users going back to 2011 whose photos were tagged and collected in a company-controlled database.