After the upheaval generated by the update in the privacy and data sharing policy on WhatsApp, Facebook faces a new controversy due to a data breach that would have compromised thousands of biometric records in Illinois. This situation was revealed by documents filed with a Chicago court.
According to an Interesting Engineering report, the social media giant will have to pay about $350 USD to each affected user, although only residents of the aforementioned state may be creditors to this compensation. James Donato, U.S. District Judge, mentions that Facebook will have to pay this compensation to nearly 1.5 million users in Illinois: “Money will come directly from Facebook’s pocket,” the judge says.
“The money will be used to protect Facebook users from the damage this incident could cause,” Donato adds. This resolution took five years, as Facebook initially offered a payment of $550 million USD, considered insufficient by the authorities. Finally, the company offered $650 million USD, an amount approved by the district judge.
On the other hand, Michael Rhodes, Facebook’s legal representative, mentioned that agreeing to a payment with the district court was the best option as if they had gone to trial the company could have lost billions of dollars, as about 20% of users of the social network in Illinois would have been affected.
In another non-related announcement, Facebook noted that some ads on the platform, specifically those related to firearms, will be temporarily disabled. This decision could be due to the incident that occurred on January 22 at the U.S. Capitol and the detection of an increase in the publication of gun advertising. The measure could be extended to Instagram in the coming days.
He is a well-known expert in mobile security and malware analysis. He studied Computer Science at NYU and started working as a cyber security analyst in 2003. He is actively working as an anti-malware expert. He also worked for security companies like Kaspersky Lab. His everyday job includes researching about new malware and cyber security incidents. Also he has deep level of knowledge in mobile security and mobile vulnerabilities.
