On July 30, 2024, a Texas state court issued an Order finalizing the largest-ever biometrics settlement, between the Texas Attorney General and Meta for a staggering $1.4 billion. The settlement resolves a longstanding civil action brought by the Texas Attorney General in 2022 asserting violations under Texas’s Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act (“CUBI”).

The Texas suit alleged that Meta, formerly known as Facebook, collected Texas residents’ biometric data through facial recognition algorithms employed in Meta’s tagging technology, which Meta has since discontinued. Notably, this settlement comes after Facebook settled a private class action lawsuit under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act in 2022 for $650 million. To date, the Texas settlement is the largest ever biometric settlement on record, whether by private right of action or state enforcement proceeding.

The Texas settlement is the first under CUBI, but it does not appear that the Texas Attorney General will stop there. In June, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced that he would implement a new team dedicated to enforcing the state’s data protection laws, including CUBI. Businesses should be prepared for an uptick in enforcement actions as Attorney General Paxton promised to “doubl[e] down to protect privacy rights.”^[1] The ultimate impact of the dedicated data protection team remains to be seen, but as proven by the Meta Settlement, the financial impact of enforcement actions under CUBI—which provides for statutory penalties in the amount of $25,000 per violation—could be extraordinary.

The Texas settlement underscores what is at stake with complying with biometrics laws nationwide. While Illinois, Washington, and New York City remain the only private rights of action under biometrics laws, the import of a state agency enforcement proceeding could be just as costly. And, proposed biometrics legislation continues to develop throughout the United States.

^[1] Attorney General Ken Paxton Launches Data Privacy and Security Initiative to Protect Texans’ Sensitive Data from Illegal Exploitation by Tech, AI, and Other Companies | Office of the Attorney General (texasattorneygeneral.gov)

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