Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Tuesday that Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, had agreed to a record settlement over unauthorized capture of biometric data.
“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,” read a statement from Paxton.
‘Any abuse of Texans’ sensitive data will be met with the full force of the law.’
Texas accused Meta of violating Texans’ rights after it turned on a feature on Facebook that would tag identities to photographs on accounts in 2011. The capture of facial features without consent of the user was prohibited in Texas according to the Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act that was signed in 2009.
“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,” read the statement from Paxton’s office.
Meta will pay the record settlement of $1.4 billion over five years.
Paxton said it was the largest privacy settlement obtained by an attorney general from a company since a group of 40 states obtained a $390 million settlement from Google in 2022.
“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,” concluded Paxton. “Any abuse of Texans’ sensitive data will be met with the full force of the law.”
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