Facebook faces new allegations of illegally harvesting Instagram user data.

Facebook Inc. is facing new allegations that it illegally harvests the biometric data of users, this time in a lawsuit that targets the company’s photo-sharing app Instagram.

Last month, the social media company offered to pay $650 million to settle a lawsuit in which it was accused of illegally collecting biometric data through a photo-tagging tool provided to Facebook users.

In the new lawsuit, filed Monday in state court in Redwood City, California, the company is accused of collecting, storing and profiting from the biometric data of more than 100 million Instagram users, without their knowledge or consent.

The practice violates an Illinois privacy law that bars the unauthorized collection of biometric data, according to the lawsuit. Under the law a company can be forced to pay $1,000 per violation — or $5,000 if it’s found to have acted recklessly or intentionally.

Only at the beginning of this year did Facebook start informing Instagram users that it was collecting the biometric data, according to the suit.

The suit is Whalen v. Facebook, 20-civ-03346, Superior Court of California (Redwood City).

In the lawsuit filed against Facebook, the company is accused of collecting and storing the biometric data of more than 100 million Instagram users without their consent using facial recognition technology.

The lawsuit states that Instagram uses facial recognition technology to create and store a “face template” of users, and that Facebook then uses that data to enhance its facial recognition technology and shares the data with various entities without user knowledge.

The lawsuit also states that Instagram uses facial recognition technology to scan the faces of people in pictures posted to the platform, including the faces of people who don’t have Instagram accounts.

“Once Facebook captures its Instagram users’ protected biometrics, it uses them to bolster its facial recognition abilities across all of its products, including the Facebook application, and shares this information among various entities,” plaintiff Kelly Whalen wrote in the lawsuit.