Google Settles Lawsuit With Illinois Residents For $100M After Photo App Privacy Concerns

Illinois residents are eligible to receive part of a $100 million class-action settlement after Google was accused of violating privacy laws in the state. From a report: The tech giant was accused of violating the Biometric Information Privacy Act regarding its use of a face regrouping tool in the Google Photos app. Google used the tool to sort faces it spots in photographs by similarity. However, according to the suit, the company did not receive consent from millions of users before using the technology. As a result, Illinois residents who appeared in a photo on the app between May 1, 2015, and April 25, 2022, may be eligible for payment.

What each claimant will be paid isn't known although a similar settlement involving Facebook saw 1.6 million users receive between $200 and $400. Payment amounts will depend on the number and validity of claims. Snapchat was also accused on violating Illinois privacy laws in a class-action lawsuit filed last month. It is still unclear when (or if) the case will move forward and potentially lead to a settlement.

How is this

[Luthair]

a privacy concern? Isn't this face sorting just within the context of one person's photos?

Re:

[FuzzMaster]

I deliberately have never shared any of my photos with Google, but I am in photos that other people have taken and Google has me indexed because of that. My brother-in-law demonstrated this by searching his Google photos for pictures of me and found many. Several of them have my face far in the background of some gatherings where I was not even remotely the subject of the photo. The technology seems inescapable and the privacy implications are significant.

Now you consent

[Art Challenor]

Presumably (without reading the article), buried in on of Google T&C is consent to this behavior, so nothing has changed, Google has to pay out what is to them, essentially, pocket change but will continue to make money on finding faces in photos.

Not the First Case

[Thelasko]

Facebook is already sending out checks to Illinois residents. [cnbc.com]

Generally, with these lawsuits

[kaatochacha]

Lawyers make, say, $80 million. participants receive a coupon for $5 off. I"m still waiting on my last two against Microsoft, back in the 2000s or so, for free hardware. There's no impetus for the lawyers filing the lawsuit to verify anyone gets paid, regardless.

Re:

[whoever57]

back in the 2000s or so, for free hardware.

Don't worry, I am sure they will soon send you a new 686 processor, or perhaps, if you are lucky, a Zune.

Re:

[kamitchell]

Specifically, from the similar Facebook lawsuit, I just deposited my $397 settlement check. In that case, the judge even rejected the original settlement, because it was too small.

Illinois has a pretty strict biometrics law. I've always been curious about Sony's Aibo, but it's not for sale or use in Illinois or Baltimore, MD [sony.com] presumably because of the biometric laws in those two areas.

Trial lawyers!

[oldgraybeard]

A plague upon all of us.

Ah yes..

[NicknameUnavailable]

..a tiny cost-of-doing-business fine for data-mining shitbags, because it would somehow be wrong to hand them an equitable fine which would bankrupt them, and force them to stop being data-mining shitbags.

It should be noted that WA AGO will do this too

[WillAffleckUW]

Both Washington State and California have stronger privacy rights, and Google had better realize it's best to surrender early than to keep digging deeper.