“Unbeknownst to most Texans,” state Attorney General Ken Paxton wrote in court documents, “Meta ran facial recognition software on virtually every face contained in the photographs uploaded to Facebook, capturing records of the facial geometry of the people depicted.”
Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, has agreed to pay $1.4 billion to settle a Texas lawsuit claiming that the company obtained and accessed the biometric data of users without obtaining their consent.
According to The Associated Press, the settlement was announced earlier this week by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. In a statement, Paxton described Meta’s payment as the largest-ever obtained by a single state.
“After vigorously pursuing justice for our citizens whose privacy rights were violated by Meta’s use of facial recognition software, I’m pleased to announce that we’ve reached the largest settlement ever obtained from an action brought by a single State,” Paxton said in a press release posted to Twitter. “This historic settlement demonstrates our commitment to standing up to the world’s biggest technology companies and holding them accountable for breaking the law and violating Texans’ privacy rights.”
In early filings, Paxton claimed that Meta began leveraging its “Tag Suggestions” feature to begin capturing and collecting users’ biometric data as early as 2011.
Tag Suggestions, the attorney general’s office claims, were described by Facebook as a novel feature that “would improve the use experience by making it easier for users to ‘tag’ photographs with the names of the people in the photo.”
“Meta automatically turned this feature on for all Texans without explaining how the feature worked,” Paxton’s office said. “Unbeknownst to most Texans, for more than a decade Meta ran facial recognition software on virtually every face contained in the photographs uploaded to Facebook, capturing records of the facial geometry of the people depicted.”
Paxton said that Facebook’s collection practices violated provisions of the Texas Capture or Use Biometric Identifier Act, which requires that companies obtain consumers’ consent before obtaining their biometric information.
CNBC notes that, though the settlement was announced by Paxton’s office earlier this week, the agreement itself was negotiate nearly two months ago—shortly before the case was scheduled to go to trial.
Meta, for its part, says that it is “pleased” to have taken the case out of court.
“We are pleased to resolve this matter, and look forward to exploring future opportunities to deepen our business investments in Texas, including potentially developing data centers,” Meta said.
Texas is continuing to litigate similar claims against other technology companies.
In 2022, for instance, Paxton’s office filed a lawsuit accusing Google of capturing users’ “voiceprints” and facial geometry through tools like Google Photos, Google Assistant, and Nest Hub Max.
The Google lawsuit is still pending.
Sources
Meta agrees to $1.4 billion settlement in Texas biometric data lawsuit over Facebook images
Meta agrees to $1.4B settlement with Texas in privacy lawsuit over facial recognition
Texas, Meta reach $1.4 billion settlement over facial recognition suit
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