Meta, Texas agree to $1.4B settlement for collection of user’s facial recognition information

The state of Texas and tech giant Meta have agreed to a record settlement after the company used users’ facial recognition without permission.

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said that Meta violated state law by collecting or selling a resident’s biometric data without their consent, The Associated Press reported.

Texas requires companies to get permission for facial and voice recognition systems to capture data. If permission is not granted but the data is still collected, a company may face damages of up to $25,000 per violation, The New York Times reported.

The lawsuit was filed in 2022 over Facebook’s “tag suggestions” that was rolled out in 2011 and used facial recognition, which was automatically turned on, to tag individuals in photos.

Meta shut down its facial recognition system, deleting the data of more than a billion users as concerns grew over the data’s misuse by outside actors.

A third of Facebook’s daily active users at the time had their faces recognized by the system.

A similar settlement was reached between the Instagram and Facebook parent company and Illinois. Texas, Illinois and Washington have biometric privacy laws, The New York Times reported.

Meta did not admit to wrongdoing, but said in a statement, “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.”

The suit against Meta was the first major case brought under Texas’ biometric law, Reuters reported. The two sides reached the agreement in May before a trial was scheduled to begin.

Paxton said the settlement confirms Texas’ “commitment to standing up to the world’s biggest technology companies and holding them accountable for breaking the law and violating Texans’ privacy rights.”

Texas also sued Google for collecting voice and facial data through its home device Nest, the Times reported.