The lawsuit was filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in 2022. In it, he accused Meta of using facial recognition technology to collect biometric data from Texans without their consent.

The settlement agreement, reached in May just weeks before the trial was set to begin, marked the final resolution of the dispute in the high-profile case. The Texas attorney general’s office said it was the largest settlement in the state’s privacy litigation history.

Allegations against Meta

The case concerned Meta’s use of facial recognition software, which was introduced in 2011 as part of Facebook’s Tag Suggestions feature, which automatically recognized and suggested tags for friends’ faces in users’ photos.

The Attorney General’s Office alleged that Meta downloaded and stored billions of biometric identifiers without obtaining proper consent from users, in violation of the Texas Collection and Use of Biometric Identifiers (CUBI) Act.

Meta reaction and changes

In response to growing concerns over the use of facial recognition technology in late 2021, Meta announced: Facebook’s facial recognition system is being shut downThis decision was taken to allay widespread fears about the consequences and possible misuse of such technology.