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A lawsuit filed against Google by consumers who claimed the search engine's photo sharing and storage service violated their privacy was dismissed on Saturday by a U.S. judge who cited a lack of "concrete injuries."
U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang in Chicago granted a Google motion for summary judgment, saying the court lacked "subject matter jurisdiction because plaintiffs have not suffered concrete injuries."
The suit, filed in March 2016, alleged Alphabet Inc's Google violated Illinois state law by collecting and storing biometric data from people's photographs using facial recognition software without their permission through its Google Photos service.
[...] Google had argued in court documents that the plaintiffs were not entitled to money or injunctive relief because they had suffered no harm. The case is Rivera v Google, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, No. 16-02714.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 03 2019, @07:12PM (1 child)
The judge made the right call, the problem here is that companies push things as far as they are allowed to get away with and the politicians fail to set reasonable limits on such things.
In this case, it would have been convenient for the judge to look the other way, but there are reasons why you're supposed to prove damages. Just look at how much trouble the MAFIAA has caused by use of statutory damages even without being able to prove that they suffered any harm or to put a dollar amount on it.
This is a situation where having a law on the books that dictated statutory damages would be appropriate. Unfortunately, when companies invade people's privacy the harm doesn't necessarily come at the time. The harm often comes much later and at that point, there's nothing that can be done to clean it up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 04 2019, @02:17AM
Conducting mass surveillance on the populace is damage.