Google can pay Texas $1.4 billion to settle knowledge privateness violation lawsuits

Google has agreed to pay the state of Texas $1.375 billion to settle two lawsuits accusing the corporate of violating its residents’ knowledge privateness rights. Texas Lawyer Normal Ken Paxton sued Google in 2022, alleging that it collected customers’ biometrics with out their categorical consent and continued to trace their location even after they’ve disabled the function. Within the Attorney General’s website, his workplace mentioned that it is the largest quantity Google has agreed to pay to resolve comparable lawsuits for knowledge privateness violations. “For years, Google secretly tracked individuals’s actions, non-public searches, and even their voiceprints and facial geometry by their services. I fought again and received,” Paxton mentioned.

When the Lawyer Normal filed the lawsuit, Google advised Engadget that Paxton mischaracterized its merchandise. One in all Paxton’s complaints, as an illustration, was that Google used options in Photographs and Assistant to scan individuals’s faces. The corporate’s spokesperson advised us that Photographs solely scanned faces in order that customers can group photographs of the identical individual for group. Google consultant Jose Castaneda advised CNBC that the corporate just isn’t admitting any wrongdoing or legal responsibility by agreeing to settle. He mentioned Google does not should make any adjustments to its merchandise as a part of the settlement. “This settles a raft of previous claims, lots of which have already been resolved elsewhere, regarding product insurance policies now we have lengthy since modified,” he mentioned.

In July 2024, Meta also agreed to pay Texas $1.4 billion to settle an identical lawsuit that accused the corporate of amassing its residents’ facial recognition knowledge. Paxton mentioned Meta violated the state’s Seize or Use of Biometric Identifier Act “billions of instances” by tagging photographs and movies with out customers’ consent.

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