Facebook’s Parent Company to Pay Texas $1.4 Billion for Using Facial Recognition Without Users’ Permission

A settlement agreement announced this morning by state Attorney General Ken Paxton requires Meta — Facebook’s parent company — to pay Texas $1.4 billion over five years to end a lawsuit accusing the company of using personal biometric data without users’ authorization.
Paxton, in a press release, said that this is the largest settlement ever obtained by a single state, and is the largest settlement related to privacy a state attorney general has ever secured.
The settlement (final order here) stems from a lawsuit Paxton filed against Meta that accused the company of unlawfully capturing the biometric data of millions of Texans without obtaining their informed consent as required by Texas law. Specifically, the lawsuit contended that Meta’s data collection violated the Texas Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act (a/k/a the CUBI Act) and the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
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 the CUBI Act 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.
There was no immediate announcement about what Texas will do with the settlement money.
The Texas Tribune has more.