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 Legal professional Basic 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 related lawsuits for knowledge privateness violations. “For years, Google secretly tracked folks’s actions, personal searches, and even their voiceprints and facial geometry by their services. I fought again and gained,” Paxton mentioned.

When the Legal professional Basic filed the lawsuit, Google informed Engadget that Paxton mischaracterized its merchandise. One in all Paxton’s complaints, as an illustration, was that Google used options in Pictures and Assistant to scan folks’s faces. The corporate’s spokesperson informed us that Pictures solely scanned faces in order that customers can group pictures of the identical particular person for group. Google consultant Jose Castaneda informed CNBC that the corporate is just not admitting any wrongdoing or legal responsibility by agreeing to settle. He mentioned Google does not should make any modifications to its merchandise as a part of the settlement. “This settles a raft of previous claims, a lot of which have already been resolved elsewhere, regarding product insurance policies we’ve lengthy since modified,” he mentioned.

In July 2024, Meta also agreed to pay Texas $1.4 billion to settle an analogous 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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