Texas AG Paxton rips Meta for stealing user biometrics to ‘make more money’

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against Meta for stealing users’ personal information and causing irreparable damages, he told "Mornings with Maria" Tuesday.

Paxton: There's specific statutory damages for a deceptive trade practice up to 10,000 per violation and then 25,000 for actually capturing someone's biometric identifier, whether that's face, fingerprints, or anything without their knowledge. Because this is all personal information and this is information you can't change. 

I mean, it's not like you can go get a new Social Security number or a new driver's license. This is your personal information and once it's out, once they've shared it, once they've disclosed it, the genie is out of the bottle. You can't get it back. So that's damaging to you as an individual when you have not known about it, you didn't consent to it as required by law. And now it's been used by Facebook to make more money as they share it with other people without your knowledge or your consent…

TEXAS SUES META OVER FACEBOOK'S FACIAL-RECOGNITION PRACTICES

They actually implied or told us that they weren't using facial geometry or capturing your face. And the reality was they've been doing it for well over a decade without our knowledge and actually misleading consumers and the state of Texas that they were actually capturing this information…

We filed this in East Texas in a state district court. I wouldn't be surprised if we are in trial within a year or so. And in front of a jury, explain to the fellow Texans exactly what happened with Facebook. 

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