Texas sues Facebook owner Meta over face recognition
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The state of Texas is suing Meta Platforms (FB
-0.2%) seeking hundreds of billions of dollars, saying that Facebook's use of facial recognition violated state privacy protections.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton says that capture of facial data in photos has resulted in "tens of millions of violations" of Texas law.
âFor over a decade, while holding itself out as a trusted meeting place for Texans to connect and share special moments with family and friends, Facebook was secretly capturing, disclosing, unlawfully retainingâand profiting off ofâTexansâ most personal and highly sensitive information: records of their facial geometries, which Texas law refers to as biometric identifiers,â the complaint argues.
The company said last November that it would stop using facial recognition on its Facebook platform, but Texas alleges that Meta has offered no such assurance for other apps including Instagram, WhatsApp or Reality Labs/metaverse applications.
Facebook had previously settled a similar class action biometric privacy lawsuit originating in Illinois, for about $650 million.
The Texas law can only be enforced by the state's attorney general, and it provides for a penalty of $25,000 per violation - and Texas figures at least 20 million Texans were members of Facebook in 2021.
Meta Platforms was added to Seeking Alpha users' portfolios last week at more than four times the rate it was deleted from portfolios.