In a subpoena filed Monday, the state of Texas asked Pfizer to turn over all communications with Meta regarding the tech company’s advertising practices.
Pictured: Blue and white Pfizer sign on building/cbies/Adobe Stock
Monday, the state of Texas filed a subpoena forcing Pfizer to surrender their advertising- and marketing-related communications with tech giant Meta, including fees paid, according to a report by Law360.
The subpoena requires the pharma company to share any information regarding Meta’s use of facial recognition technology, user accessibility, engagement and satisfaction, and other advertising and marketing practices.
Aside from Pfizer, five other companies were also issued subpoenas, including Procter & Gamble, The Home Depot, The New York Times, SmileDirectClub and Clarity Media Group, which is Meta’s media consultant.
Clarity Media is being asked to provide contracts, public relations plans and other similar documents dating back to 2008, which could show whether Meta knew of biometric data laws.
The subpoena is asking the companies to hand over “[a]ll documents and communications with Meta, including any in-house or outside counsel for Meta, regarding Meta’s disclosures to its users related to or implicating facial recognition technology, and including without limitation wording choice for any such disclosures and all drafts thereof,” Law360 reported.
The subpoenas are part of Texas’s ongoing lawsuit against Meta, which it filed in February 2022. In the court filing, Texas claimed that Meta, through its social media arm Facebook, “unlawfully captured the biometric identifiers of Texans for a commercial purpose without their informed consent.”
In addition, the state alleges that Meta not only failed to destroy these identifiers within a “reasonable time” but also shared them with other entities in violation of Texas’s Capture of Use of Biometric Identifier Act.
Texas is seeking $25,000 in civil penalties for each violation of the Act, as well as $10,000 for each violation of Texas’ Deceptive Trade Practices-Consumer Protection Act.
The state is also asking the court to stop Meta from “capturing, maintaining, or using in any way the biometric identifiers captured in Texas without the informed consent,” as well as destroy all information the social media platform had already captured.
The tech company has denied these allegations, calling them “without merit,” according to a report by NPR. Meta officially discontinued its Facial Recognition system on Facebook in November 2021.
Tristan Manalac is an independent science writer based in metro Manila, Philippines. He can be reached at tristan@tristanmanalac.com or tristan.manalac@biospace.com.
