Meta agreed to pay $1.4 billion to the state of Texas in June 2026 to settle a lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in 2022 alleging that Facebook and Instagram collected facial recognition data from Texas residents without required consent under the Texas Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act.
The settlement is the largest privacy settlement ever paid to a single US state, surpassing the $650 million Illinois class action settlement Meta paid in 2022 for similar biometric data violations. The Texas case was filed independently by the state attorney general rather than through a class action.
Meta did not admit wrongdoing in the settlement. The company said in a statement that it reached the agreement “to avoid the uncertainty of a lengthy legal dispute” and that it had already removed facial recognition features from its platforms before the settlement.
What Meta Was Accused of Doing
The Texas Biometric Privacy Act (CUBI) requires companies to obtain informed consent before capturing a biometric identifier, which Texas defines to include facial geometry data captured through tag suggestions and photo analysis features.
Texas alleged that Meta’s automatic face-tagging feature, which suggested tags when users were identified in photos uploaded to Facebook, captured facial geometry data from millions of Texans without the “informed consent” required by CUBI. Meta disabled automatic face tagging globally in November 2021, before the Texas lawsuit was filed.
The attorney general’s complaint sought $25,000 per intentional violation of CUBI, potentially applying to each instance a Texas resident’s face was captured without consent across billions of photos. The theoretical maximum exposure was in the trillions of dollars, which both parties agreed was not a realistic settlement target.
How the $1.4 Billion Will Be Used
Texas law requires civil penalty funds to go to the state’s general revenue fund. Attorney General Paxton announced that $300 million will be allocated to a new Texas Consumer Privacy Protection Fund to support future enforcement actions and consumer education programs.
The remaining $1.1 billion enters the general fund. Texas does not provide direct payments to individual consumers whose data was collected, unlike class action settlements where affected consumers can file claims for compensation.
Privacy advocates criticized the lack of individual compensation. The ACLU said the settlement “benefits the state more than the 29 million Texans whose faces were scanned without consent.” Attorney General Paxton responded that the deterrence effect of a $1.4 billion penalty is itself a benefit to consumers.
Texas Biometric Law vs. Similar State Laws
| State | Law | Penalties | Private Right of Action |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texas | CUBI | $25K/intentional violation | No (AG enforcement only) |
| Illinois | BIPA | $5K/intentional violation | Yes |
| Washington | My Health MY Data | $7.5K/violation | Yes (limited) |
| New York (2028) | NY Privacy Act | $15K/intentional violation | Yes |
| California | CPRA | $7.5K/intentional violation | No (CPPA only) |
Frequently Asked Questions
Did Meta collect my face data without consent?
Meta’s automatic face-tagging feature, which suggested photo tags for recognized users, was active from 2011 to November 2021. If you uploaded or appeared in photos on Facebook during that period, your facial geometry may have been processed by Meta’s recognition system. Texas and Illinois settlements did not require Meta to delete historical facial recognition data already in its systems.
Why is the Texas settlement larger than the Illinois settlement?
The Texas case was pursued by the state attorney general under Texas CUBI, which carries penalties up to $25,000 per intentional violation, significantly higher than Illinois BIPA’s $5,000. The attorney general can pursue each violation as a separate count, creating much larger theoretical exposure. The Illinois case was a class action where individual recoveries are smaller but more consumers participate.
Does Meta still use facial recognition?
Meta disabled automatic facial recognition for photo tagging in November 2021 globally and deleted the facial recognition templates it had built for over a billion users. However, Meta’s advertising systems still use demographic inference from photos, which is different from biometric identification. Whether advertising photo analysis constitutes biometric data collection is an open legal question.
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