Meta Class Action Lawsuit Over Facebook and Instagram Face Data

A proposed class action filed against Meta claims the company quietly converted photos from Facebook and Instagram into biometric faceprints without telling users or asking permission.

At the center of the complaint is NameTag, a face-recognition feature reportedly in development for Meta's Ray-Ban and Oakley smart glasses that has not yet been released to the public. The lawsuit alleges Meta built faceprints from Facebook and Instagram photos so the glasses could identify people, and that it also used those same photos to train its AI image generators, including Emu and Muse Image. Meta maintains that none of this technology has shipped to consumers.

Filed September 4, 2026, the case was brought by two families, each a parent and minor child, one from Illinois and one from California. Notably, the children named in the suit don't have their own Facebook or Instagram accounts; their parents posted photos of them. The plaintiffs argue this shows the alleged harm can reach people who never signed up for Meta's platforms at all, simply because they appeared in someone else's photos.

The lawsuit alleges violations of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, which requires companies to provide notice and obtain written consent before collecting biometric identifiers like face scans. It also raises claims under California's right-of-publicity law and the state's constitutional right to privacy. The plaintiffs are seeking monetary damages, a court order forcing Meta to publish a compliant data retention policy, and a permanent injunction barring the alleged practices going forward.

The proposed classes would include anyone whose images were uploaded to Facebook, Instagram, or one of Meta's generative AI tools between September 4, 2021, and the present. These claims remain unproven, Meta has not been found liable, and the company has called the lawsuit without merit.