Google Photos Bans AI Editing in Texas and Illinois Over Biometric Privacy Laws

In November 2025, Google Photos users in Texas and Illinois have been unable to access the app's Conversational Editing feature, which enables AI-powered photo editing through voice commands or text. This restriction is due to the biometric data collection required for the Face Groups feature, which groups similar faces detected in photos.

The Face Groups feature creates facial geometry models, a biometric analysis of shapes, proportions, and angles, to identify and group together photos of the same person. However, this type of facial recognition technology is not legal in all regions, and requires user consent to collect biometric data.

Both Texas and Illinois have laws that restrict the collection and use of biometric identifiers without explicit permission. In 2022, Texas sued Google over unauthorized biometrics collection, while Illinois residents filed a $100 million lawsuit against the company for the same issue. As a result, Google has disabled the Conversational Editing feature in these two states to comply with the local privacy laws.

While the editing capabilities themselves are not the problem, the biometric data required for the Face Groups feature is the legal sticking point. Google has settled these lawsuits, but the company's ongoing facial recognition processes make it difficult to comply with the states' regulations on the destruction of biometric data.