Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced his office is suing Facebook (now Meta) for allegedly obtaining and using the biometric data of millions of Texans without their proper informed consent.
Paxton filed the lawsuit in the 71st Judicial District in Harrison County, Texas. According to the lawsuit, Facebook has stored millions of biometric identifiers “contained in photos and videos uploaded by friends and family who used the social media app.”
Today, I filed a #BigTech lawsuit against Facebook ⬇️
Facebook cannot take advantage of people and their children with the intent to turn a profit at the expense of one’s safety and well-being.https://t.co/NW0yp4oBCP
— Texas Attorney General (@TXAG) February 14, 2022
The Daily Wire reports:
In doing so, Facebook exploited the personal information of users for profit, according to the lawsuit. The alleged actions are in violation of Texas’ Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act and the Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
“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,” Paxton said. “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,” Paxton said in the statement.
The suit also alleged Facebook captured biometric data from non-users, impacting many additional Texans.
“Facebook’s illegal and deceptive conduct did not end with its users. For Texans who did not use Facebook’s social-media services, Facebook was still capturing hundreds of millions of biometric identifiers from photos and videos innocently uploaded by friends and family who did use Facebook. There was no way for such non-users to know of or contest this exploitation,” the lawsuit noted.
The lawsuit also noted the “staggering” nature of Facebook’s violation due to the number of times the actions occurred.
“The scope of Facebook’s misconduct is staggering. Facebook repeatedly captured Texans’ biometric identifiers without consent not hundreds, or thousands, or millions of times — but billions of times,” the lawsuit added.
Facebook announced it was ending its facial recognition system in November following a class-action lawsuit from Illinois.
The Texas law can provide up to $25,000 per violation. The lawsuit estimates up to 20 million Texans had Facebook accounts in 2021.
