On Friday, the Attorney General of Texas announced that Google will pay a $1.4 billion settlement to the state to resolve allegations of unauthorized collection of user data by the tech giant.
Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas filed a lawsuit against Google in 2022, accusing the search giant of collecting millions of users’ biometric information, including voiceprints and facial geometric data, through its products and services such as Google Photos, Google Assistant, and Nest Hub Max.
Paxton stated that the settlement sends a message to tech companies that he will not allow them to profit by “selling our rights and freedoms.” “In Texas, big tech companies cannot override the law,” Paxton said in a statement on Friday. “For years, Google secretly tracked people’s movements, private search behavior, and even their voiceprints and facial geometric data through its products and services. I fought back and won.”
Google spokesperson José Castañeda mentioned that the agreement resolves a series of “old claims”, some of which involve changes to the company’s product policies. “We are pleased to put these issues behind us and will continue to build strong privacy controls in our services,” Castañeda said in a statement.
Paxton noted that the $1.4 billion settlement amount is the largest in the agreements reached between states and Google regarding such privacy data infringements. In the past two years, Texas has also reached two other significant settlements with Google, one of which, reached in December 2023, involved Google agreeing to pay $700 million and make other concessions to address Texas’ allegations of anti-competitive practices in its Android app store.
Meta company, formerly known as Facebook, has also agreed to a $1.4 billion settlement with Texas in a privacy lawsuit, where Texas accused the tech giant of using users’ biometric data without permission.
(Taken from an Associated Press report)