Texas is suing Facebook parent company Meta over claims that the social media platform violated Texas law with its facial recognition technology.
Facebook’s facial recognition technology is no longer being used by the platform, but the Lone Star State certainly doesn’t care about that — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is pursuing hundreds of billions of dollars in civil penalties ($25,000 for each of the 20 million+ Facebook users in Texas, ouch) for the platform’s technology. Paxton commented:
According to Texas’ allegations, Facebook’s facial-recognition technology stored data about users’ facial geometries, which are considered to be highly-sensitive biometric identifiers by the state’s law. Texas alleges that the platform stored and profited from biometric identifiers without user consent, even though Facebook has already discontinued the controversial technology.
This isn’t the first time Facebook is in legal drama over its biometric data — a class-action lawsuit filed in Illinois required the platform to fork over $650 million in penalties for similar allegations.
Meta responded that Texas’ allegations “are without merit and we will defend ourselves vigorously.”