Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive officer of Meta Platforms Inc. META, must take part in a deposition in a Texas court case regarding the firm’s use of facial recognition technology.
What Happened: On Tuesday, Texas’s Sixth Court of Appeals Judge Jeff Rambin has rejected Meta’s attempt to prevent Zuckerberg from being deposed, reported CNBC. The deposition date, however, remains unspecified.
The lawsuit, initiated by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in February 2022, contends that Meta illegally gathered and used the biometric data of millions of Texans without securing informed consent.
See Also: Meta Offers $51M To Resolve Ads Lawsuit With Canadian Facebook Users In Four Provinces
The company is also accused of contravening the state’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act by "failing to disclose information — including the fact that it collects biometric identifiers — with the intent to induce Facebook users in Texas into using Facebook, which such users would not have done had the information been disclosed."
The court’s decision cited Zuckerberg’s “unique personal knowledge of discoverable information” as relevant to the case.
Meta did not immediately respond to Benzinga's request for comments.
Why It Matters: This isn’t the first time Meta finds itself embroiled in controversy over biometric data.
In 2020, the company faced a lawsuit for supposedly collecting biometric data of over 100 million Instagram users without their consent. The lawsuit claimed that Facebook only started notifying users about such collections at the start of 2020.
In 2021, Meta settled a facial recognition-related class action lawsuit for $650 million, the report noted.
In 2023, Zuckerberg’s old messages resurfaced, leading to renewed concerns about Facebook's privacy practices. This happened amidst a growing rivalry between Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) and Meta’s newly launched decentralized social media platform, Threads.
Photo by Frederic Legrand – COMEO on Shutterstock
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