Meta Platforms has agreed to pay $1.4 billion to the state of Texas to settle a lawsuit that alleged that Facebook’s parent company illegally used facial recognition technology to collect biometric data on millions of Texans without their consent.
The settlement terms announced Tuesday are the largest single-state agreement ever, according to a team of Texas lawyers, including the plaintiffs’ law firm Keller Postman.
The suit, filed in 2022, was the first major lawsuit filed under Texas’ 2009 biometric privacy law, according to a law firm that tracks the litigation.
The law provides for damages of up to $25,000 per violation.
Texas accused Facebook of collecting biometric information “billions of times” from photos and videos users uploaded to the social media platform as part of a free, now-defunct feature called “tag suggestions.”
A Meta spokesman said the company was pleased to resolve the matter and looked forward to “exploring future opportunities to deepen our business investments in Texas, including data center development.”
The company continues to deny any wrongdoing.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement that the settlement “demonstrates our state’s determination to stand up to the world’s largest technology companies and hold them accountable for violating our laws and violating the privacy rights of Texans.”
Texas and Mehta said they reached the agreement in May, weeks before the trial was scheduled to begin in state court.
Meta separately agreed to pay $650 million in 2020 to settle a biometric privacy class action lawsuit brought under Illinois privacy laws, considered one of the strictest in the United States.
The company also denied any wrongdoing.
Alphabet Inc.’s Google is also fighting a separate lawsuit filed by Texas that alleges it violates the state’s biometric identification law.
