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Meta to pay $1.4 billion settlement after Texas facial recognition complaint

Facebook’s parent accused of gathering data from photos and videos without "informed consent."

It also marks one of the largest penalties levied at Meta by regulators, second only to a $5 billion settlement it paid the US Federal Trade Commission in 2019 for the misuse of user data in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal. The original complaint filed by Paxton in February 2022 accused Facebook’s now-closed facial recognition system of collecting biometric identifiers of “millions of Texans” from photos and videos posted on the platform without “informed consent.” A spokesperson for Meta said on Tuesday: “We are pleased to resolve this matter, and look forward to exploring future opportunities to deepen our business investments in Texas, including potentially developing data centers.”

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