Meta Agrees to $1.4B Settlement With Texas in Privacy Lawsuit Over Facial Recognition

By Associated Press

Published 2 mins ago on

July 30, 2024

The Meta logo is seen at the Vivatech show in Paris, France, Wednesday, June 14, 2023. Meta failed to take down an AI-generated intimate image of an Indian female public figure that violated its policies until the company's review board got involved, the panel said in a decision on two deepfake cases released Thursday, July 25, 2024. (AP File)

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AUSTIN, Texas — Meta has agreed to a $1.4 billion settlement with Texas in a privacy lawsuit over claims that the tech giant used biometric data of users without their permission, officials said Tuesday.

Largest Settlement Secured By a Single State

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said the settlement is the largest secured by a single state. In 2021, a judge approved a $650 million settlement with the company, formerly known as Facebook, over similar claims of users in Illinois.

“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,” Paxton, a Republican, said in a statement.

Meta said in a statement: “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.”

Filed in 2022, the Texas lawsuit alleged that Meta was in violation of a state law that prohibits capturing or selling a resident’s biometric information, such as their face or fingerprint, without their consent.

Meta Announced in 2021 That They Will Shut Down Face-Recognition

The company announced in 2021 that it was shutting down its face-recognition system and delete the faceprints of more than 1 billion people amid growing concerns about the technology and its misuse by governments, police and others.

At the time, more than a third of Facebook’s daily active users had opted in to have their faces recognized by the social network’s system. Facebook introduced facial recognition more than a decade earlier but gradually made it easier to opt out of the feature as it faced scrutiny from courts and regulators.

Facebook in 2019 stopped automatically recognizing people in photos and suggesting people “tag” them, and instead of making that the default, asked users to choose if they wanted to use its facial recognition feature.

The $1.4 billion is unlikely to make a dent in Meta’s business. The Menlo Park, California-based tech made a profit of $12.37 billion in the first three months of this year, Its revenue was $36.46 billion, an increase of 27% from a year earlier. Meta is scheduled to report its second-quarter earnings results on Wednesday.

Meta’s stock slipped $4.06 to $461.65 Tuesday, a decline of less than 1%.

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