Once again, Facebook is being sued for falsely spying on users of Instagram, this time through illegal use of their cell phone cameras. The lawsuit is a result of media reports in July that, even though they were not actively used, the photo-sharing application seemed to access iPhone cameras. Facebook refuted the reports and blamed a bug for causing what it identified as false alerts that Instagram had been accessing iPhone cameras, which it said was correcting.
In the federal court lawsuit filed in San Francisco on Thursday, New Jersey Instagram user Brittany Conditi claims that the use of the camera by the app is deliberate and done for the purpose of gathering “lucrative and useful data on its users that it would not otherwise have access to.”
Instagram and Facebook, according to the lawsuit, are able to gain “valuable insights and market analysis” by “having incredibly private and confidential personal data about their users, even in the privacy of their own homes.” Facebook has refused to comment. Facebook was accused of using facial recognition technology to secretly collect the biometric data of its more than 100 million Instagram users in a lawsuit filed last month. Facebook refuted the assertion and said Instagram is not using face recognition technology.