Meta reached a $1.4 billion settlement with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tuesday to settle a 2-year-old lawsuit related to the company’s use of facial recognition software.
“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 in a press release.
The massive settlement stems from a lawsuit filed in 2022, alleging that Meta’s past use of facial recognition technology violated the state’s privacy protections. Prosecutors alleged Facebook had collected and stored millions of biometric identifiers contained in photos and videos uploaded by users. Further, the lawsuit claimed that Facebook failed to disclose this practice to users and obtain their consent. At the time, Meta said these claims were “without merit.”
Meta agrees to pay the state of Texas $1.4 billion over five years, and the first payment of $500 million is due in the next month, according to a court filing.
The lawsuit focused on a Facebook feature rolled out in 2011 called “Tag Suggestions,” which claimed to make it easier to tag photos with the names and accounts of people in the photo. Facebook automatically turned this feature on for American users. State prosecutors alleged that this feature ran facial recognition software on virtually every face on Facebook for more than a decade.
“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,” Meta spokesperson said in an email to TechCrunch.
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