Facebook is being sued by the state of Texas over its use of facial recognition.
The social media giant - which is owned by Mark Zuckerberg company Meta - is accused of violating the state's privacy laws by capturing biometric data on tens of millions of Texans without properly obtaining consent. .
In a statement, Attorney General Ken Paxton said: "Facebook will no longer take advantage of people and their children with the intent to turn a profit at the expense of one's safety and well-being. This is yet another example of Big Tech's deceitful business practices and it must stop."
The facial recognition technology used by Facebook works by scanning into identifiable data, but has since become a growing privacy and civil rights concern.
The lawsuit - which was filed on Friday 11.02.2022 - claimed that by answering the "simple question" of who was tagged in post, Texans have unwittingly helped Facebook with their "commercial endeavours" and could become victims of exploitation.
The lawsuit read: "Little did users know that when they answered the simple question of who was in the photograph, they were helping to teach Facebook's facial-recognition technology to better map and recognize human faces for the benefits of Facebook's commercial endeavours - and to the detriment of users' and nonusers' personal safety and security."
"Unlike other identifiers, such as Social Security numbers, which can be changed when stolen or misappropriated, biometric identifiers are permanent. Once a biometric identifier is captured, a bad actor can access and exploit the identifier for the rest of the victim’s life."
In an emailed statement, a Meta spokesperson told CNET that the "claims are without merit" and that the company will defend itself "vigorously."
