Meta to pay Texas $1.4 million for gathering users’ biometric data without consent

EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) -- Social media and tech giant Meta has agreed to a $1.4 million settlement with the State of Texas after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against the company’s practice of capturing and using personal biometric data without authorization.

This is the first lawsuit brought and settled under Texas’s “Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier” Act, which "prohibits a person from capturing an individual's biometric identifiers for a commercial purpose unless that person informs the individual and obtains the individual's consent."

“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,” said Attorney General Paxton. “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.”

In 2011, Meta rolled out a new feature, initially called Tag Suggestions, that it claimed would make it easier for users to “tag” people in photographs. The Attorney General's Office says the feature, which was turned on by default, ran facial recognition software on almost all photos uploaded to Facebook, capturing records of the subjects' facial geometry. The Attorney General's Office adds this feature did not properly obtain the users' consent.

The company will pay the state of Texas the settlement of $1.4 billion over five years.