On Tuesday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton won a record $1.4 billion settlement from Meta (f/k/a Facebook), in a final judgement against the Big Tech behemoth, which had captured biometric data from millions of Texans without their informed consent, in violation of state law.
The $1.4 billion final judgement agreed to by both parties is record-setting:
- It is the largest settlement ever obtained from an action brought by a single State.
- It is the largest privacy settlement an Attorney General has ever obtained.
- It is the first lawsuit brought and first settlement obtained under Texas’s “Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier.”
“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,” AG Paxton said in a release announcing the judgement.
Beginning in 2011, Meta had used a “tag” feature to furtively run facial recognition software on photos users uploaded to Facebook, the attorney general’s release explains:
“Unbeknownst to most Texans, for more than a decade Meta ran facial recognition software on virtually every face contained in the photographs uploaded to Facebook, capturing records of the facial geometry of the people depicted.
“Meta did this despite knowing that CUBI forbids companies from capturing biometric identifiers of Texans, including records of face geometry, unless the business first informs the person and receives their consent to capture the biometric identifier.”
Under the settlement, Meta agrees to pay the $1.4 billion judgement over a period of five year
