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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit on Monday against Facebook's parent company Meta Platforms Inc. alleging that Facebook captured and used the biometric data of millions of Texans without their consent in a violation of state law.
The social media site captured biometric evidence from photos and videos that users uploaded to share with friends and family, the suit alleges, regardless of whether the people in the photos have a Facebook account. Facebook allegedly supplied this information to other entities, according to the suit, and often failed to destroy the biometric identifiers "within a reasonable time."
The suit's claims are similar to a class action lawsuit case in Illinois that resulted in a $650 million settlement last year, according to CNBC. That case alleged Facebook had stored data regarding people's faces without consent for its photo-tag suggestion tool, violating Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act. Meta announced in November 2021 that it was shutting down Facebook's face recognition system that identified people in photos and videos, deleting over a billion people's facial recognition templates.
There are an estimated 20.5 million Texans that had a Facebook account in 2021, according to the suit, which says that Facebook repeatedly captured their biometric identifiers without consent "not hundreds, or thousands, or millions of times—but billions of times." Each time is an alleged violation of the Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act (CUBI) and the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices-Consumer Protection Act (DPTA).
CUBI requires the informed consent of a consumer in order to capture biometric identifiers for commercial purposes and doesn't allow those with the information to disclose it except under certain circumstances. It also requires that the biometric identifiers be destroyed within a year of when they were first captured.
DPTA protects consumers against "false, misleading, and deceptive business and insurance practices, unconscionable actions, breaches of warranty," according to the Temple Law Office in Texas.
The lawsuit says Facebook "built an artificial intelligence empire on the backs of Texans by deceiving them while capturing their most intimate data, thereby putting their well-being, safety and security at risk" for more than a decade.
The lawsuit seeks civil penalties in hundreds of billions of dollars, a person familiar with the matter said, The Wall Street Journal reported.
"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 in a news release. "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."
Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Update 02/14/22 3:05 p.m. ET: This story was updated to include background information.
