Google has agreed to pay the state of Texas $1.375 billion to settle two lawsuits accusing the corporate of violating its residents’ information privateness rights. Texas Lawyer Normal Ken Paxton sued Google in 2022, alleging that it collected customers’ biometrics with out their specific consent and continued to trace their location even after they’ve disabled the characteristic. Within the Attorney General’s website, his workplace stated that it is the greatest quantity Google has agreed to pay to resolve comparable lawsuits for information privateness violations. “For years, Google secretly tracked individuals’s actions, personal searches, and even their voiceprints and facial geometry via their services and products. I fought again and gained,” Paxton stated.
When the Lawyer Normal filed the lawsuit, Google informed Engadget that Paxton mischaracterized its merchandise. Considered one of Paxton’s complaints, as an illustration, was that Google used options in Images and Assistant to scan individuals’s faces. The corporate’s spokesperson informed us that Images solely scanned faces in order that customers can group photographs of the identical individual for group. Google consultant Jose Castaneda informed CNBC that the corporate just isn’t admitting any wrongdoing or legal responsibility by agreeing to settle. He stated Google would not need to 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 have now lengthy since modified,” he stated.
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 information. Paxton stated Meta violated the state’s Seize or Use of Biometric Identifier Act “billions of instances” by tagging images and movies with out customers’ consent.
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