Meta to pay Texas $1.4 billion for selling biometric data of millions of Texans without authorization

Meta Platforms, Inc., and the Texas Attorney General's Office have reached an agreement to settle a $1.4 billion court case. The subject of the lawsuit was the illegal use by the company co-founded and led by Mark Zuckerberg of users' biometric data.

"We have secured a $1.4 billion settlement with Meta to stop the company’s practice of capturing and using the personal biometric data of millions of Texans without the authorization required by law," Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement.

"This settlement is the largest ever obtained from an action brought by a single State and the largest privacy settlement an Attorney General has ever obtained," Paxton continued, adding that, "This serves as a warning to any companies engaged in practices that violate Texans’ privacy rights."

Meta Platforms accepts its guilt

As soon as the ruling became known, the tech giant issued a statement picked up by Fortune magazine in which it accepted its responsibility. It further noted that it will do everything it can to "deepen our business investments in Texas, including potentially developing data centers."

Texas filed its lawsuit in 2022, alleging that Meta Platforms traded a user's biometric information without their consent. In doing so, the Zuckerberg-led company violated a state law that prohibits committing such an action.