April 12--A lawsuit brought by an Illinois man who accused photo-sharing website Shutterfly of violating his privacy by using facial recognition software to identify his face has been settled for an undisclosed amount.
The case, which was given the go-ahead to proceed in January by a federal judge in Chicago, was being closely watched because if it had gone to trial it could have had implications for Facebook and other companies that use facial recognition software.
Illinois resident Brian Norberg alleged in the suit, which sought class-action status, that his face ended up in Shutterfly's database after a friend uploaded and tagged a photo of him in February 2015. Shutterfly measured the contours of his face and the distance between his eyes, nose and ears to create a template it used to suggest other photos of Norberg be tagged with his name, the suit said, alleging that Shutterfly had violated Norberg's rights under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act.
The company also attempted to determine Norberg's race, age and location without trying to get his consent, the suit alleged.
But California-based Shutterfly argued that "Helping a user re-identify his own friends within his own digital photo album does not violate any law."
Both parties moved Tuesday to dismiss the case, which had yet to be certified as a class, after reaching an undisclosed settlement.
Lawyers for Norberg declined to discuss the settlement and attorneys for Shutterfly did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A similar case brought by another Illinois resident, Carlo Licata, remains pending against Facebook in federal court in California.
kjanssen@tribpub.com
