Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, settled for $1.4 billion following allegations from Texas claiming that it clandestinely collected millions of users’ bio-metric data. This goes down in history as one of the largest penalties imposed on the social media giant.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton affirmed that the state is “[committed] to standing up to the world’s biggest technology companies.” Furthermore, he wants to assure Texans of his dedication to “holding [Meta] accountable” and violating privacy rights. This settlement comes just over two years after the tech titan faced litigation for illegally obtaining face recognition data from Texas. The company did not admit to any wrongdoing in this case.
Tag Suggestions–the feature’s original name from 2010–aimed to allow users to tag other users in photos. However, it was automatically enabled without user consent or clarification of its purpose. The lawsuit accused Meta of violating the state’s Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier (CUBI) Act and the Deceptive Trade Practices Act. In spite of this, Meta knowingly ran face recognition software on “virtually every face contained in the photographs uploaded to Facebook,” according to a statement from the Attorney General’s office. CUBI strictly prohibits collecting specific identifiers, including face geometry.
In November 2021, Meta said it was discontinuing its face recognition system entirely. It also deleted a collection of more than a billion users’ face related info as part of a wider initiative to curb the use of facial recognition tech across its products. That same year, it agreed to shell out a $650 million settlement for a 2015 class-action lawsuit in Illinois regarding the use of its face-tagging system.
Meta is not the only company under fire, however. The state of Texas sued Google in October 2022 for allegedly breaching the same privacy law by gathering voice and facial data through its consumer products. This case is still underway.
Sourced from The Hacker News. Want to learn more about cybersecurity? Read more on our site here.