Google has agreed to pay the American state of Texas nearly $ 1.4 billion to settle two proceedings that have accused the company of following the personal location of users and maintaining their facial recognition data without consent.
Payment of $ 1.375 billion overshadows the fines that the technology giant has paid to settle similar proceedings brought by other US states. In November 2022, he paid $ 391 million to a group of 40 states. In January 2023, he paid $ 29.5 million at Indiana and Washington. Later in September, he spent an additional $ 93 million to settle with California.
The case, initially filed in 2022, linked to illegal monitoring and the collection of user data, concerning geolocation, incognito research and biometric data, user monitoring where the location history parameter was deactivated and the collection of biometric data without informed consent.
“For years, Google has secretly followed people’s movements, private research and even their vocal fingerprints and their facial geometry via their products and services,” Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, said in a press release.
“This $ 1.375 billion regulation is a major victory for Texans’ privacy and said to the companies they will pay to abuse our confidence.”
Last year, Google announced its intention to store data from the chronology of cards locally on user devices instead of their Google accounts. The company has also deployed other privacy checks that allow users to automatically delete location information when the location history parameter is activated.
Payment also competes with a fine of $ 1.4 billion that Meta paid Texas to settle legal action for allegations that he illegally recovered the biometric data from millions of users without their permission.
Development comes at a time when Google is the subject of an intense regulatory examination on both sides of the Atlantic, faced with calls to break certain parts of its company to satisfy antitrust concerns.
