FILE photo - Texas sued Meta on Monday over misuse of biometric data, the latest round of litigation between governments and the company over privacy. FILE photo - Texas sued Meta on Monday over misuse of biometric data, the latest round of litigation between governments and the company over privacy. Texas sued Facebook parent company Meta for exploiting the biometric data of millions of people in the state - including those who used the platform and those who did not. The company, according to a suit filed by state Attorney General Ken Paxton, violated state privacy laws and should be responsible for billions of dollars in damages. The suit involves Facebook's "tag suggestions" feature, which the company ended last year, that used facial recognition to encourage users to link the photo to a friend's profile.

The Texas attorney general is suing Facebook parent Meta, saying the United States company has unlawfully collected biometric data on Texans for commercial purposes, without their informed consent. Attorney General Ken Paxton filed the lawsuit Monday in state district court, claiming Meta has been "storing millions of biometric identifiers" -- identified as retina or iris scans, voiceprints, or a record of hand and face geometry -- contained in photos and videos people upload to its services, including Facebook and Instagram. "Facebook will no longer take advantage of people and their children with the intent to turn a profit at the expense of one's safety and well-being," Paxton said in a statement. "This is yet another example of Big Tech's deceitful business practices and it must stop. I will continue to fight for Texans' privacy and security."

Meta's past use of facial recognition technology has once again landed the company in potential legal trouble. On Monday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against the company, alleging it had collected the biometric data of millions of Texans without obtaining their informed consent to do so. At the center of the case is Facebook's now discontinued use of facial recognition technology. The platform previously employed the technology as part of its "tag suggestions" feature, which used image recognition to scan photos and automatically tag users in them. Last November, Meta shut down that system, citing, among other reasons, " uncertainty" about how the technology would be regulated in the future.

The Texas attorney general filed a suit against Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. on Monday, charging that the social-media giant's longstanding and now discontinued use of facial-recognition technology violated that state's privacy protections for personal biometric data. The lawsuit, filed in state district court in Marshall by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, seeks civil penalties in the hundreds of billions of dollars, according to a person familiar with the matter.