Facebook was sued for collecting and storing the facial data of its users' without consent, thereby violating the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) of 2008.

Lead plaintiff Nimesh Patel sued Facebook in one of three consolidated class actions in 2015, claiming the social network started mapping users’ faces for its Tag Suggestions feature in 2011. 

The plaintiffs said Facebook did so without their permission and failed to inform them how long their data would be stored as required by BIPA. 

Nearly 1.6 million affected Facebook users in Illinois submitted claims under the class-action suit.

The case has been widely recognised as the first major lawsuit on the issue.