“Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, agreed to a record $1.4 billion settlement with Texas on Tuesday, over allegations that it had illegally collected facial recognition information on millions of users in violation of state law.
Meta violated Texas state privacy laws by automatically tagging users’ faces on its site, according to a suit filed in 2022. The agreement is the largest privacy settlement by a U.S. state.
Meta and other tech giants have come under intense scrutiny by regulators and consumers in recent years for abuses of privacy.
Meta previously paid Illinois $550 million in 2020 to settle a similar suit over facial recognition.
The company is facing more than a dozen lawsuits by the attorneys general of 45 states, and the District of Columbia accusing
Meta of unfairly ensnaring teenagers and children on Instagram and Facebook while deceiving the public about the hazards.
Meta did not admit to any wrongdoing in the settlement.
The amount of the settlement is a fraction of Meta’s revenues, which totaled $139 billion in 2023, most of which stem from the company’s ad business that uses consumer data for targeted marketing.”
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“Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, agreed to a record $1.4 billion settlement with Texas on Tuesday, over allegations that it had illegally collected facial recognition information on millions of users in violation of state law.
Meta violated Texas state privacy laws by automatically tagging users’ faces on its site, according to a suit filed in 2022. The agreement is the largest privacy settlement by a U.S. state.
Meta and other tech giants have come under intense scrutiny by regulators and consumers in recent years for abuses of privacy.
Meta previously paid Illinois $550 million in 2020 to settle a similar suit over facial recognition.
The company is facing more than a dozen lawsuits by the attorneys general of 45 states, and the District of Columbia accusing
Meta of unfairly ensnaring teenagers and children on Instagram and Facebook while deceiving the public about the hazards.
Meta did not admit to any wrongdoing in the settlement.
The amount of the settlement is a fraction of Meta’s revenues, which totaled $139 billion in 2023,
most of which stem from the company’s ad business that uses consumer data for targeted marketing.”