Texas Attorney General Paxton has sued Facebook (now known as Meta) for using biometric data without consumers’ consent. He alleges that the social media superpower has violated state privacy protection laws on facial-recognition technology by collecting this data from millions of people.
The lawsuit states that Facebook captures biometric data from photos and videos that are uploaded to their website, storing the data and saving retina or iris scans, fingerprint, voiceprint, or record of hand scans. The suit alleges that Facebook illegally exploited the personal information of millions in order to grow and profit from its brand.
“Unlike other identifiers, such as social security numbers, which can be changed when stolen or misappropriated, biometric identifiers are permanent,” the lawsuit read. “Once a biometric identifier is captured, a bad actor can access and exploit the identifier for the rest of the victim’s life.”
According to the lawsuit, the state can enforce a civil penalty of up to $25,000 per violation of Texas’ Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act for each unlawful collection of a biometric identifier, disclosure of that data to a third party, and failure to destroy the data in a timely manner.
In November, Facebook said in a blog post that they would be shutting down the facial recognition system and deleting more than a billion individual face recognition templates. According to the post, they were concerned about the use of technology and uncertainty over what the rules are regarding its use.
The company settled last year for $650 million in another case from 2020 linked to facial recognition. The lawsuit accused Facebook of violating Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act by storing people’s facial recognition data without their consent for its photo-tag suggestion tool.
In 2019, the company agreed to implement new oversight measures in a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission that cost the tech giant $5 billion.
“Facebook will no longer take advantage of people and their children with the intent to turn a profit at the expense of one’s safety and well-being,” said Attorney General Paxton in a statement. “This is yet another example of Big Tech’s deceitful business practices and it must stop. I will continue to fight for Texans’ privacy and security.”
“These claims are without merit, and we will defend ourselves vigorously,” a spokesperson for Meta wrote in a statement.