Meta: Is there a frequent-defendant discount?

Potentially massive civil penalties are on the line in a new biometric data privacy lawsuit filed against Meta Platforms by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

The Wall Street Journal has reported that Paxton wants to penalize Meta, Facebook’s parent company, for violating Texas’ biometric-privacy laws. Specifically, Texas says Facebook illegally harvested the geometries of faces in photos posted on the social media site.

“Tens of millions of violations” of state law occurred between 2010 and 2021, according to reporting by the Journal.

Meta executives said they had stopped the practice when Meta was created to subordinate Facebook, which has become a very reliable lightning rod when it comes to the use and alleged misuse of subscribers’ biometric data.

Paxton began an investigation into Facebook’s collection practices in 2020.

Attorneys from Blank Rome proffered advice on mitigating liability risk from Texas’ Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act (CUBI) in 2020.

Facebook last year agreed to pay $650 million to settle a class action in which the company was accused of violating Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). The case trundles on, however, as two class members have appealed the settlement to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Article Topics

biometric data  |  biometrics  |  CUBI  |  data collection  |  data protection  |  face biometrics  |  Facebook  |  lawsuits  |  legislation  |  Meta