Meta Platforms, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, is settling a lawsuit filed by the state of Texas against the company’s illegal collection of biometric data, according to court documents.
The lawsuit accuses Meta of using facial recognition to harvest data of millions of users across Texas without obtaining informed consent. Facial recognition had previously been discontinued on Facebook However, Meta deployed it without the knowledge of consumers and collected their biometric data, the lawsuit states.
The $1.4 billion settlement has been approved by the court. The complaint against Meta is the first major case brought against a leading tech conglomerate under the state’s Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act, or CUBI Act, which came into effect in 2009.
The CUBI Act “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”.
The lawsuit was filed in 2022 by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
“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,” Paxton said in a statement.
The case levelled allegations against Meta that it harvested biometric information “billions of times” using different user media, primarily photos and videos, which was uploaded to Facebook under the now discontinued feature called “Tag Suggestions”. The feature originally came with the ability to identify an individual’s face in the photos so they could be tagged along with their profile details.
A Meta spokesperson, on the other hand, told CNBC, “We are pleased to resolve this matter, and look forward to exploring future opportunities to deepen our business investments in Texas, including potentially developing data centers.”
The settlement amount will be paid over a period of five years.
