Texas Sues Google for Collecting Biometric Data Without Consent:
The Texas attorney general filed a privacy lawsuit against Google on Thursday, accusing the internet company of collecting Texans' facial and voice recognition information without their explicit consent.
Ken Paxton, the state's attorney general, said Google had violated a state consumer protection law that requires companies to inform citizens and get their consent before capturing their biometric identifiers, including fingerprints, voiceprints and a "record of hand or face geometry."
Violators of the law face fines of up to $25,000 per violation. Mr. Paxton said Google had millions of users in Texas who were potentially affected.
"Google's indiscriminate collection of the personal information of Texans, including very sensitive information like biometric identifiers, will not be tolerated," Mr. Paxton said in a statement. "I will continue to fight Big Tech to ensure the privacy and security of all Texans."
José Castañeda, a Google spokesman, said in a statement that Mr. Paxton "is once again mischaracterizing our products in another breathless lawsuit." He added, "We will set the record straight in court."
The complaint targets the Google Photos app, which allows people to search for photos they took of a particular person; Google's Nest camera, which can send alerts when it recognizes (or fails to recognize) a visitor at the door; and the voice-activated Google Assistant, which can learn to recognize up to six users' voices to give them personalized answers to their questions. Mr. Paxton said the products violated the rights of both users and nonusers, whose faces and voices were scanned or processed without their understanding or consent.
[...] Texas introduced its biometric privacy law in 2009, with Illinois and Washington passing similar laws around the same time. While Illinois's version of the law allows individuals to sue companies directly, Texas must sue companies on consumers' behalf. Until this year, Texas had not enforced its law.
In contrast, hundreds of class-action lawsuits have been filed over biometric privacy in Illinois, including one against Google in 2016, which recently ended in a $100 million settlement.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Sunday October 23 2022, @11:07AM (8 children)
The record is, Google collects all data, of all types, no matter how sensitive that data might be. Only Facebook has committed more heinous data collection crimes, by scraping doctor's office interactions for medical data.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 23 2022, @01:57PM (6 children)
The other record is Ken Paxton filing frivolous and irrelevant law suits for political purposes.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday October 23 2022, @02:14PM (5 children)
Perhaps, and his motives may be suspect, but that doesn't change the fact that it sounds like Google has in fact been blatantly violating a very reasonable law. So my only complaint is that the law hasn't previously been enforced against Google or other the many others whose business model is based on violating it.
(Score: 2) by helel on Sunday October 23 2022, @02:24PM (4 children)
If accepting users uploaded pictures violates the law it sounds like everyone from Facebook to imgur to dropbox is violating it and maybe it's not such a well thought out law. It seems really restrictive to ban accepting from users photos that have other people in them, especially for backup services.
"Sorry, the state of Texas says we aren't allowed to backup the photos of your child so if you want those baby pictures back you're just going to have to re-take them..."
Republican Patriotism [youtube.com]
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Sunday October 23 2022, @03:27PM (3 children)
Two things.
Other users shouldn't be uploading photographs of me, without asking my permission. I mean, explicitly asking if I mind that they post a photo to Facefook, or whatever.
Second, you mention backup services? WTF is Google using the backups of personal photos for their own nefarious purposes? A backup is a backup, it's not a share, such as you find on Facebook and similar. If Google is sharing my backups, does that mean that every hacker in the world has access to everything stored in the cloud? Oh - wait - yes they do. THAT is what so many of us have been warning and complaining about for years now. Not only does Google have access, but so does anyone and everyone with the technical chops to access Google's servers.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by fliptop on Sunday October 23 2022, @03:55PM
Unfortunately, if the pics were taken in a public setting, there's not much you can do. There is no expectation of privacy in public.
To be oneself, and unafraid whether right or wrong, is more admirable than the easy cowardice of surrender to conformity
(Score: 2) by helel on Sunday October 23 2022, @04:18PM (1 child)
So according to the law "A person may not capture a biometric identifier of an individual for a commercial purpose unless the person: informs the individual before capturing the biometric identifier; and receives the individual's consent to capture the biometric identifier." If google photos is in violation because someone else uploaded a picture of you that means every other web service that sells advertising or collects payments is in violation as well.
Backblaze costs money? That's commercial use of every picture you've taken of your children growing up. They cannot legally save them for you.
Republican Patriotism [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday October 23 2022, @09:09PM
Only if they extract biometric identifiers from the photo. By a reasonable interpretation, just having a photo from which biometric identifiers could be captured does not violate the statute. You have to actually capture those identifiers, and then use them for commercial purposes (e.g. to identify photos with a picture of person X within a commercial setting).
I suspect that even temporarily extracting the identifiers to see if they match anyone on the "has given approval" list would get a pass, provided that data was then immediately discarded for anyone who hadn't given approval.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday October 24 2022, @03:08PM
So far as you know.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 23 2022, @11:59AM
Not enough electoral donations from Google to the state's attorney general, those punks need a lesson in civics.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday October 23 2022, @04:16PM (2 children)
Even the thickest Texan is capable of scrolling through 35 pages of legalese and clicking on Accept.
Legally, EVERYBODY who has ever used a computer has already agreed to EVERYTHING.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Sjolfr on Sunday October 23 2022, @07:28PM (1 child)
Nope.
When it comes to phones we do still have some privacy rights, but not many because we can not "own" the phone operating system. Rooting is there, but the phone manufacturers fight hard to prevent it. Computers don't have the same "use it and lose your privacy" features to them. Even Windows doesn't have that same level of privacy violation built in. It is, however, moving in that direction. Folks should at least use applications that are privacy oriented (and skip things like chrome).
Support free and open computer systems. System76, Librem, etc. Free and open phones are a more difficult nut to crack, but there are some. I'm still waiting for librem 5.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday October 24 2022, @03:20PM
This is what we call "putting your money where your mouth is". I.E. Saying, yes, I care and I will do something about it.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by krishnoid on Sunday October 23 2022, @05:35PM
In that order? How about fighting the legislature itself [georgetown.edu] to ensure that?