Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton Announced On Tuesday, Meta, formerly known as Facebook, announced it had agreed to a record settlement over the unauthorized harvesting of biometric data.
“I am proud that our vigorously pursued justice for Americans whose privacy rights were violated by the use of Meta’s facial recognition software, resulting in the largest settlement ever obtained in a single state lawsuit,” Paxton said in a statement.
“Any misuse of Texans’ sensitive data will be met with rigorous enforcement of the law.”
The state of Texas accused Meta of violating the rights of Texans when it enabled the feature to tag IDs in photos on Facebook accounts in 2011. Capturing facial features without a user’s consent was prohibited in Texas by the Capture or Use of Biometric Identifiers Act of 1999. Signed In 2009.
“Unbeknownst to most Texans, for over a decade Mehta ran facial recognition software on nearly every face in photos uploaded to Facebook, recording the facial shapes of the people in the photos,” a statement from Paxton’s office said.
Mehta will pay a record settlement of $1.4 billion over five years.
Paxton said this is the largest privacy settlement an attorney general has obtained from a company since a group of 40 states won a $390 million settlement from Google in 2022.
“This historic settlement demonstrates our commitment to standing up to the world’s largest technology companies and holding them accountable for violating the law and violating the privacy rights of Texans,” Paxton concluded. “Any misuse of Texans’ sensitive data will be met with the force of the law.”
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