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Meta reached a $ 1.4 billion settlement with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tuesday to settle a 2 - year - old lawsuit related to the fellowship ’s usage of facial recognition software .
“ After vigorously pursuing justice for our citizens whose privacy right were transgress by Meta ’s enjoyment of facial recognition software , I ’m lofty to denote that we have reach the largest settlement ever prevail from an action brought by a single state , ” said Attorney General Paxton in apress release .
The massive settlement stems from alawsuit filed in 2022 , alleging that Meta ’s retiring function of facial recognition technology dishonor the state ’s concealment protections . prosecuting attorney allege Facebook had collected millions of biometric identifiers from photos and video uploaded by users through an automated photo chase feature . Further , the lawsuit claimed that Facebook failed to reveal this exercise to exploiter and obtain their consent . At the time , Meta said these claim were “ without meritoriousness . ”
A neat feature with big privacy concerns
The lawsuit focused on a Facebook lineament rolled out in 2011 called “ Tag proffer , ” which claimed to make it easier to tag photograph with the names and news report of people in the photo . Facebook automatically turned this feature on for American users . Department of State prosecutors alleged this feature article ran facial recognition software on virtually every typeface on Facebook for nearly a tenner . In 2019 , Facebook made the system explicitly prefer - in , but it was too small too of late .
By 2021 , Facebook herald it wouldshut down its facial recognition systemsand delete a massive aggregation of more than a billion user ’ biometric data point . At the time , Facebook ’s VP of contrived intelligence Jerome Pesenti said facial recognition was a powerful peter , but noted the pauperism to address “ arise concerns about the use of this engineering science as a whole . ”
While the feature was interesting and slightly helpful for users , Tag Suggestions may have been trouble than it was deserving . In 2021 , Facebook was order to pay$650 million to go under a course of instruction action lawsuitconcerning the same feature film ’s data compendium practices .
“ We are proud of to solve this matter , and look forward to explore succeeding opportunity to intensify our business investments in Texas , include potentially developing data point heart , ” Meta interpreter said in an email to TechCrunch .
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Meta agrees to pay the state of Texas $ 1.4 billion over five years , and the first defrayment of $ 500 million is due in the next calendar month , according toa court filing .
