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Meta faces billion-dollar fine for unlawful facial recognition

Facebook regularly comes into conflict with the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). But that by no means means that the social network of the “meta corporation” does not also come into conflict with the law in its home country from time to time. This has now happened in the US state of Texas. There, the social network is facing a fine in the billions. Why all this? Facebook’s facial recognition is said to have been used illegally.

Texas vs. Meta

That a company is big becomes clear at the latest when an entire state sits in the dock. This is now the case in a court battle between Texas and Meta. The US state accuses the tech company from Silicon Valley of unlawfully handling the most sensitive personal data of its users. To be more precise, it is said to be about the biometric data that Facebook has collected in its photo function with automatic personal recognition, which has always been controversial. This feature is said to violate two laws of the southern state. Should the court deem the lawsuit to be lawful and find Facebook or the Meta Group guilty, the company could face a horrendous fine in the billions.

Express consent of the persons remained out

The dispute centers on a Texas law that requires the explicit consent of individuals when using and collecting biometric data. Facebook also used this feature in Texas for many years. However, the corresponding consent of the users was never obtained. At least, that is what emerges from the statement of claim filed by Attorney General Ken Paxton. Meta itself, however, is not guilty of any wrongdoing. The company considers the accusations made by the US state to be unfounded. Therefore, it will by no means admit guilt. Quite the contrary. Meta defends itself against the accusations.

Problem exists with non-Facebook users

At the end of last year, Facebook had already backed down on its once-touted facial recognition feature. Now the legal consequences of the feature are looming. The focus is not on Facebook users. After all, they gave their express consent to facial recognition in the terms and conditions. Rather, it is about the people who are not even registered with the social network in the first place. Attorney General Paxton says that when filtering out just those are also scanned to find out whether they have a profile or not. The required consent is missing in these cases.

There is a threat of heavy fines

The subject of the dispute in Texas is not new legal territory for Meta. After all, the group already had to pay a hefty fine of $650 million to the U.S. state of Illinois because of its facial recognition technology. That was in 2020, but what is now looming in Texas is likely to dwarf that once again. Experts expect the fine to run into the billions.

Simon Lüthje

I am co-founder of this blog and am very interested in everything that has to do with technology, but I also like to play games. I was born in Hamburg, but now I live in Bad Segeberg.

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Facebook regularly comes into conflict with the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). But that by no means means that the social network of the „meta corporation“ does not also come into conflict with the law in its home country from time to time. This has now happened in the US state of Texas. There, … (Weiterlesen...)

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