Illinois Facebook users: your $397 privacy settlement check should be in the mail beginning May 9

The wait is nearly over for 1.6 million Illinois Facebook users who filed claims in a landmark $650 million biometric privacy settlement.Their $397 checks should be in the mail beginning May 9, according to Chicago attorney Jay Edelson, who brought the lawsuit against Facebook seven years ago.“Not only did we demonstrate that privacy cases can put real money back into the pockets of the class, we also showed that, when it comes to securing biometric privacy, the wind is at our collective backs,” Edelson said Friday.The payouts follow a ruling last month by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which upheld the February 2021 class-action settlement over Facebook’s alleged violations of Illinois’ biometric privacy law. Two Illinois class members, Dawn Frankfother and Cathy Flanagan, who objected to the awarding of $97.5 million in attorneys’ fees agreed they “will not take any further action in this matter,” freeing up the distribution, according to an April 11 court filing.The settlement class included about 7 million Facebook users in Illinois for whom the social network created and stored a face template after June 7, 2011. To qualify, Facebook users had to live in the state for at least six months…
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