Meta has settled with the state of Texas for a record $1.4 billion over the company’s unauthorized collection of biometric data.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Meta in March 2022, accusing the company of illegally collecting users’ biometric data. AG Paxton said the company was collecting users collecting the data without obtaining user consent, a violation of the state’s Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act and the Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
In a press release Tuesday, Paxton’s office said Meta had agreed to the “largest settlement ever obtained from an action brought by a single state.”
This settlement is the largest ever obtained from an action brought by a single State. Further, this is the largest privacy settlement an Attorney General has ever obtained, dwarfing the $390 million settlement a group of 40 states obtained in late 2022 from Google. This is the first lawsuit brought and first settlement obtained under Texas’s “Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier” Act and serves as a warning to any companies engaged in practices that violate Texans’ privacy rights.
The lawsuit focused on Meta’s Tag Suggestions feature, that allowed users to tag others in photographs.
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.
“After vigorously pursuing justice for our citizens whose privacy rights were violated by Meta’s use of facial recognition software, I’m proud to announce that we have reached the largest settlement ever obtained from an action brought by a single State,” said Attorney General Paxton. “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. Any abuse of Texans’ sensitive data will be met with the full force of the law.”
from WebProNews https://ift.tt/citfZh1
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