OREANDA-NEWS. Facebook reached a pre-trial agreement in connection with a lawsuit from users from the US state of Illinois who accused the company of illegally collecting and storing biometric data, the law firm Edelson said in a statement. According to the American media, the social network will pay $ 550 million under the agreement.

The reason for the lawsuit was the Tag Suggestions service, which helped to automatically tag people in uploaded photos. The lawsuit was filed in 2015. According to the American media, a group of users from Illinois accused the company of violating state privacy law by collecting data from people without their consent and without warning about how long they will be stored. Facebook didn't agree with the charges against her.

Information about concluding a pre-trial agreement on the lawsuit in Illinois appeared in the company's quarterly financial report. David Vener, Facebook CFO, noted that the payment of compensation led to a serious increase in the general and administrative expenses of the company, which jumped immediately by 87% from last year.

“We decided to reach an agreement, guided by the interests of the community and our shareholders, who sought to leave this situation in the past”, the publication quotes the words of the company's official representative.