Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against Meta over Facebook’s facial recognition practices, his office announced on Monday. The news was first reported by The Wall Street Journal, which notes that the lawsuit seeks civil penalties in the hundreds of billions of dollars. The lawsuit alleges that the company’s use of facial recognition technology, which it has now discontinued, violated the state’s privacy protections regarding biometric data.
A press release announcing the lawsuit alleges that Facebook has been storing millions of biometric identifiers contained in photos and videos uploaded by users. Attorney General Paxton says that Facebook exploited the personal information of users “to grow its empire and reap historic windfall profits.”
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