Texas Attorney Gen. Sues Google Over Facial Recognition in Photos

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton introduced the state is suing Google for allegedly accumulating biometric knowledge from hundreds of thousands of Texans with out consent, his workplace stated in a press launch Thursday. The case is a part of a current flood of lawsuits in opposition to tech corporations over biometrics, which measure bodily traits like faces and fingerprints. But this new lawsuit makes an uncommon and probably gamechanging argument: Paxton alleges Google violated the privateness of people that aren’t even Google customers.

“Google’s indiscriminate collection of the personal information of Texans, including very sensitive information like biometric identifiers, will not be tolerated,” Paxton stated within the press release. “I will continue to fight Big Tech to ensure the privacy and security of all Texans.” It’s Paxton’s sixth case in opposition to Google.

A Google spokesperson stated in a press release, “AG Paxton is once again mischaracterizing our products in another breathless lawsuit.”

Elaborating on specifics, the assertion reads, “For example, Google Photos helps you organize pictures of people, by grouping similar faces, so you can easily find old photos. Of course, this is only visible to you and you can easily turn off this feature if you choose and we do not use photos or videos in Google Photos for advertising purposes. The same is true for Voice Match and Face Match on Nest Hub Max, which are off-by-default features that give users the option to let Google Assistant recognize their voice or face to show their information. We will set the record straight in court.”

Paxton—an election denier, hater of the LGBTQ neighborhood, and alleged fraudster under indictment for seven years—has certainly been dedicated to combating large tech, to various levels of absurdity and seriousness. But because the saying goes, a stopped clock is true twice a day, and the biometrics lawsuit is a part of a current sequence of affordable privateness critiques which might be gaining momentum. He additionally accuses Google of accumulating voice knowledge through its Assistant and Nest thermostat merchandise.

Earlier this yr, Paxton filed a separate lawsuit in opposition to Google, alleging amongst different modifications that Chrome’s Incognito Mode deceives individuals by suggesting that non-public tabs defend your knowledge (they positively don’t). Paxton filed one other biometrics lawsuit in opposition to Meta (aka Facebook) this yr, and with the brand new case in opposition to Google, he could have one other good argument in opposition to the search big.

The lawsuit says that Google’s providers gather biometric knowledge with out consumer consent, which is a well-trod authorized situation, however the privateness rights of people that aren’t really customers of the service is a subject that hasn’t garnered a lot consideration within the courts. The Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act, handed in Texas in 2009, prohibits accumulating or sharing biometric knowledge with out knowledgeable consumer consent.

The lawsuit factors out that merchandise like Google Photos embody options like Face Grouping, which makes use of facial recognition to kind collectively photographs of the identical individuals. Even in the event you gave Google permission to gather your personal facial recognition knowledge, the individuals you’ve taken photos of in all probability didn’t.

“To Google, it does not matter that the three-year-olds, the bystanders, and grandma never consented to Google capturing and recording their biometric data,” the lawsuit says.

The best solution to defend individuals’s privateness by way of laws is usually to ban sure practices outright, however up to now, privateness regulation throughout the globe focuses on consent, which is typically known as a “notice and choice” mannequin. That’s an inconceivable normal to fulfill for providers that gather knowledge about individuals who aren’t even customers.

“This is a gap in a lot of privacy laws right now,” stated Tiffany Li, assistant professor on the University of New Hampshire School of Law. “It also shows that we need to move past the notice and choice regime. We need privacy laws that not only give individuals the right to advocate for their own rights, but we also need privacy regulation that regulates entire industries.”

There’s precedent to recommend that the case has benefit. Collectively, Google, Meta (aka Facebook), Snap, an a wide range of different tech corporations have agreed to pay out lots of of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} over lawsuits alleging they broke state biometrics legal guidelines. The strongest state biometrics law is Illinois’ Biometrics Information Privacy Act, which stands aside from different knowledge rules as a result of it lets anybody, not simply regulators, sue corporations for violating their rights.

In the absence of sturdy federal privateness requirements, “biometric data, including our fingerprints, face, and other personal identifiers, will continue to be surveilled and collected without informed user consent,” stated Nicol Turner Lee, director of the Center for Technology Innovation on the Brookings Institution. “What the recent lawsuit suggests is that we have not come to national consensus on the norms and standards for the most appropriate use cases in the collection of biometric data.”

Paxton’s efforts could be a part of a cynical effort to curry favor with Republican’s who’ve grown more and more disillusioned with the tech trade. But with this Google case, Paxton is pushing the boundaries of privateness legislation, and relying on how that performs out it may set a brand new precedent for holding tech corporations accountable.