The Texas Attorney General has filed a lawsuit against Meta, the parent company of Facebook. Authorities allege that the social network's now-retired facial recognition technology violates state law to protect user privacy. Fines for violations can run into hundreds of millions of dollars.

Attorney General Ken Paxton said the collection of biometric data — in this case, facial geometry from photographs users uploaded from 2010 through the end of last year — resulted in "tens of millions of violations" of state law.

“Facebook secretly collects personal information from Texans — photos and videos — for its own corporate benefit,” Paxton points out. “Texas law has prohibited such data collection without user consent for more than twenty years. All the while, regular Texans have been using Facebook to simply share their photos with loved ones, friends, and family. But now we know that Facebook has been blatantly defying Texas laws for the last ten years."

Facebook previously settled a similar lawsuit involving its facial recognition system for about $650 million. The lawsuit was filed in 2015, accusing the company of violating an Illinois biometric privacy law, which is similar in some respects to Texas law. Both laws require users' permission to collect personal data.

After the lawsuit was settled in Illinois, Texas authorities sent the company a civil subpoena asking for information about the facial recognition system. In November last year, Facebook announced that it would stop using the system, but the lawsuit was filed anyway.

It's worth noting that, unlike Illinois law, which allows a class-action lawsuit against a company, Texas law can only be enforced by the state's attorney general. Texas law also provides for a $25,000 fine for each violation, which could cost Meta hundreds of millions of dollars.

bbabo.Net