“This historic settlement demonstrates our commitment to standing up to the world’s largest technology companies and holding them accountable for breaking the law and violating the privacy rights of Texans,” Paxton said in a statement. “Any misuse of Texans’ sensitive data will be met with the full force of the law.”
“We are pleased to have resolved this matter and look forward to exploring future opportunities to further our business investments in Texas,” Meta spokesman Chris Sgro said in a statement. The company did not admit any wrongdoing as part of the settlement.
In 2022, Paxton filed a lawsuit claiming that Meta knowingly violated the state’s biometric identifier capture or use laws and deceptive trade practices and consumer protection laws by implementing a now-defunct facial recognition-based photo and video tagging feature. Texas law states that it is unlawful for a person to capture, disclose, or monetize someone’s biometric identifier without their informed consent. The state also requires tech companies to store biometric information for a limited period of time.
Texas Attorney General As Meta claimed in 2011: It launched a feature designed to make it easier for users to “tag” people in photos by name without explaining how the technology worked. “Unbeknownst to most Texans, Meta has been running facial recognition software on nearly every face in photos uploaded to Facebook for more than a decade, capturing a geometrical record of the faces depicted,” the state attorney general’s office said in a statement.
Meta, which operates Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is facing a number of challenges. File a lawsuit By states that claim the company’s services harm children, keep users addicted, and invade their privacy. Dozens of state attorneys general and school districts have accused the tech giant of using manipulative practices to hook children on its services and show them harmful content. In May, families of the victims of the Uvalde school shooting sued Meta for promoting an aggressive gun marketing campaign on social media targeting vulnerable youth.
Meta’s privacy practices have come under scrutiny from regulators around the world since the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018, when it was revealed that a political consulting firm had improperly accessed the personal data of 87 million Facebook users. Meta agreed to a $5 billion settlement with the Federal Trade Commission in 2019.
Last year, the European Union fined Meta $1.3 billion, its largest fine to date, for violating privacy laws by transferring user data from Europe to the United States.
