Facebook wins preliminary approval to settle facial recognition lawsuit

Facebook Inc won preliminary approval late on Wednesday from a federal court for settlement of a lawsuit that claimed it illegally collected and stored biometric data of millions of users without their consent.

The social media company had in July raised its settlement offer by US$100 million (RM417 million) to US$650 million (RM2.7 billion) in relation to the lawsuit, in which Illinois users accused it of violating the US state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act.

The revised settlement agreement resolved the...