Texas AG wins $1.4 billion from tech company settlement

(The Center Square) – The state of Texas obtained a major settlement from a lawsuit against the major tech company Meta over their unauthorized handling of their users' biometric data, according to a news release from Tuesday.

The settlement comes a little over two years after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton originally filed a lawsuit against the major technology conglomerate Meta, formerly known as Facebook, back in February 2022. Paxton’s decision to sue Meta came to light due to their violating privacy data rights of Texans.

Multibillionaire Mark Zuckerberg is the co-founder and CEO of Meta Platforms.

The news release details how Meta’s mishandling of collecting users' data affected millions of Texas residents.

Meta was “unlawfully capturing the biometric data of millions of Texans without obtaining their informed consent as required by Texas law,” according to the release.

The release also mentions how the unlawful data collection methods from Meta violated two of Texas’ acts, including the Deceptive Trade Practices Act, as well as the Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier (CUBI) Act.

The settlement resulted in Paxton securing a whopping sum of $1.4 billion dollars from Meta.

This announcement from Paxton is noteworthy as it marks the biggest settlement ever received due to action from a single state.

The tech company will now have to pay the state of Texas the amount over the course of five years, according to the terms of the settlement.

“After vigorously pursuing justice for our citizens whose privacy rights were violated by Meta’s use of facial recognition software, I’m proud to announce that we have reached the largest settlement ever obtained from an action brought by a single State,” Paxton said. “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. Any abuse of Texans’ sensitive data will be met with the full force of the law.”

According to the news release, Meta did not explain how one of its social media platforms' features that collected biometric data worked. Meta also did not obtain consent from users in Texas to switch the feature on in the first place.

“In 2011, Meta rolled out a new feature, initially called Tag Suggestions, that it claimed would improve the user experience by making it easier for users to ‘tag’ photographs with the names of people in the photo,” The release said. “Meta automatically turned this feature on for all Texans without explaining how the feature worked. 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. Meta did this despite knowing that CUBI forbids companies from capturing biometric identifiers of Texans, including records of face geometry, unless the business first informs the person and receives their consent to capture the biometric identifier.”

Paxton celebrated the win for Texas in securing the settlement money on his social media channels.

“This serves as a warning to any companies engaged in practices that violate Texans’ privacy rights,” Paxton said Tuesday in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter.