Meta will pay $1.4 billion for illegal collection of biometric data of Texas residents

It has become known that Meta✴ Platforms has reached an agreement with the state of Texas to settle a lawsuit it filed accusing the company of illegally using facial recognition technology to collect biometric data of Texans without their consent, for which it agreed to pay a huge sum of $1.4 over five years billion

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The parties said they reached a settlement in May, weeks before the trial began.

The lawsuit, filed in state court in 2022 by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, alleged that Meta✴ used facial recognition software without Texans’ consent in photos uploaded to Facebook✴.

The attorney general’s office said Facebook✴ downloaded and stored billions of biometric identifiers without customers’ consent after introducing its Tag Suggestions feature in 2011, which automatically recognizes friends’ faces in a user’s photos. As the prosecutor pointed out, Meta✴ did this despite knowing that the Texas Capture or Use of Biometric Identifiers Act (CUBI) prohibits companies from collecting biometric identifiers of Texans without prior notification and obtaining their consent.

At the end of 2021, Meta✴ said it was shutting down its facial recognition system on Facebook✴, citing “growing concerns about the use of this technology in general.”

The settlement is the largest ever recovered from a single-state lawsuit, prosecutors said.

«This historic settlement demonstrates our commitment to confronting the world’s largest technology companies and holding them accountable for breaking the law and violating Texans’ privacy rights,” the Texas Attorney General said Tuesday.

A Meta✴ spokesperson told CNBC: “We are pleased to resolve this matter and look forward to exploring future opportunities to deepen our business investments in Texas, including potential data center development.”