Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive officer of Meta Platforms Inc. META, will have to participate in a deposition in a Texas court case concerning the use of facial recognition technology.
Huge Setback: Texas’s Sixth Court of Appeals Judge Jeff Rambin has rejected Meta’s attempt to prevent Zuckerberg from being deposed. The deposition date, however, remains unspecified.
The lawsuit, initiated by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in February 2022, alleges that Meta illegally gathered and utilized the biometric data of millions of Texans without securing informed consent.
Furthermore, the company is accused of violating 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 pertinent to the case.
Meta did not immediately respond to Benzinga’s request for comments.
Significance: This isn’t the first time Meta finds itself embroiled in controversy over biometric data.
In 2020, the company was hit with a lawsuit alleging the collection of 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. Simultaneously, concerns surrounding Facebook’s privacy practices re-emerged when Zuckerberg’s old messages resurfaced in 2023.
Photo by Frederic Legrand – COMEO on Shutterstock
Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of Benzinga Neuro and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.