- Texas is suing Meta over its facial recognition program, according to the Wall Street Journal.
- Facebook shut down the facial recognition program in November.
- Texas AG Ken Paxton plans to seek "hundreds of billions of dollars," in penalties.
Meta is facing trouble — again.
This time, it's over a Texas lawsuit: The state's attorney general, Ken Paxton, is suing Meta Platforms, Facebook's parent company, over the social media network's now-shutdown facial recognition program, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Paxton says Facebook obtained Texans' face measurements and the like, also known as biometric identifiers, without consent, which violates state law, per a press release from the office.
"By this illegal activity, Facebook exploited the personal information of users and non-users alike to grow its empire and reap historic windfall profits," the statement read.
Citing a person familiar with the issue, Paxton plans to seek "hundreds of billions of dollars," in civil penalties, the WSJ reported.
The relevant law is the Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act, (CUBI) which was passed in 2009. The attorney general's office submitted a civil subpoena for information about the facial recognition program after it became public that Facebook settled for $650 million with Illinois over a similar class action suit, the WSJ noted.
Besides capturing the data without consent, Texas' suit argues that Facebook "disclosed those identifiers to others, and failed to destroy collected identifiers within a reasonable time," as required by the Texas law, as well as violated another Texas law with "false, misleading, and deceptive acts."
You might remember Facebook asking if you wanted to tag yourself in photos, but the social media platform shut down the facial recognition program in November. Facebook's VP of artificial intelligence Jerome Pesenti cited "growing societal concerns."
But the company could still use facial recognition in the Metaverse. Critics of the technology have cited issues such as racial bias, noting one example of a Black teen, who was removed from a skating rink over mistaken facial recognition.
"These claims are without merit and we will defend ourselves vigorously." a Meta spokesperson told Insider in an email.