Meta agrees to $1.4 billion settlement in Texas biometric data lawsuit over Facebook images

Meta agreed to pay a record $1.4 billion to settle a lawsuit by the state of Texas over the Facebook owner’s unauthorized use of biometric data by users, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Tuesday.

The suit, filed by Paxton in February 2022, accused Meta of capturing and using the biometric data of millions of Texas residents — which was contained in uploaded photos and videos on Facebook — without legally required permissions.

The attorney general’s office said Facebook stored billions of biometric identifiers without customers’ consent after introducing a new feature in 2011 called “Tag Suggestions.”

“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,” Paxton’s office said.

The office said that Meta did this despite knowing that Texas’ Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act bars companies from capturing biometric identifiers of Texans without first informing them and obtaining their consent.

Meta in late 2021 said it was shutting down its Face Recognition system on Facebook, citing “growing concerns about the use of this technology as a whole.”

The legal settlement with Meta, filed in Texas state district court in Harrison County, is the largest ever obtained as the result of an action by a single state, according to Paxton’s office.

Meta will pay out the $1.4 billion to Texas over five years, the office said.

“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 said in a statement Tuesday on the Meta case.

“Any abuse of Texans’ sensitive data will be met with the full force of the law,” Paxton said.

A spokesperson for Meta told CNBC, “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.”

Although the settlement was announced Tuesday, the deal was reached nearly two months ago, on the eve of a scheduled June trial in the case, according to McKool Smith, the law firm that represented Texas in the suit, along with the firm Keller Postman.

McKool Smith on Tuesday said the parties had asked the judge in the case at that time to pause proceedings to allow the parties to formalize the terms of the deal before it was announced.

Paxton’s office is continuing to press a lawsuit against Alphabet, which accuses the Google owner of illegally collecting biometric data from millions of Texans.