Texas, USA Files Lawsuit Against Meta for Privacy Invasion Using Facial Recognition Technology

by Jeong Hyunjin

Published 15 Feb.2022 07:14(KST)

[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Jeong Hyunjin] Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, was sued by the state of Texas on the 14th (local time) for invading privacy using facial recognition technology.

According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and others, Ken Paxton, the Texas Attorney General, filed a lawsuit in the Marshall District Court on the same day, claiming that Meta's facial recognition technology violated Texas privacy laws. Texas reportedly requested the court to impose civil fines amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars.

The issue raised by Texas concerns a service Facebook has provided since 2010 that automatically recognizes people in photos or videos and suggests tags when users upload photos. Attorney General Paxton claimed that from 2010 until last year, Facebook identified the geometric structure of faces in photos uploaded by users and used this data, violating state laws tens of millions of times.

Paxton emphasized, "Facebook has secretly collected the most private information of Texans, such as photos and videos, for corporate profit," adding, "Texas law has prohibited such collection activities without consent for over 20 years."

Meta responded to Texas's announcement with a statement saying that users were notified and consented when using the facial recognition technology service, and expressed its intention to actively respond to the lawsuit.

This is not the first time Meta has faced a lawsuit over this service. Previously, in 2015, Illinois filed a class-action lawsuit against Facebook for violating state law requiring consent to use residents' biometric information. At that time, Facebook argued that users were given the option to disable this feature, but in 2020, it agreed to pay $650 million (approximately 777.5 billion KRW).