In a significant development for consumer privacy rights, Google has agreed to pay the state of Texas a staggering $1.375 billion to settle two lawsuits accusing the tech giant of unlawfully tracking users’ personal location and capturing their facial recognition data without consent. This represents one of the largest settlements in recent memory concerning privacy violations.
The allegations date back to 2022 and focus on Google’s actions regarding geolocation tracking, incognito searches, and the unauthorized collection of biometric data. The lawsuits claim that Google continued to track users’ locations even when the Location History setting was turned off and collected biometric information without proper consent.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton stated, “For years, Google secretly tracked people’s movements, private searches, and even their voiceprints and facial geometry through their products and services.” He underscored the settlement as a major victory for Texans, signifying that companies will be held accountable for breaching consumer trust.
This landmark settlement eclipses previous fines that Google has suffered related to similar accusations, including a payment of $391 million to a coalition of 40 states in November 2022, and $29.5 million to Indiana and Washington earlier this year. Another settlement involving California yielded a payment of $93 million.
The settlement is comparable to a $1.4 billion fine incurred by Meta in a settlement over similar allegations concerning the illegal collection of biometric data. Furthermore, it arrives amid heightened scrutiny over Google’s practices, with ongoing investigations into potential antitrust violations that could necessitate a restructuring of its business model.
In response to previous concerns, Google announced plans in 2024 to store Maps Timeline data locally on users’ devices rather than its servers, alongside implementing new privacy controls that enable users to auto-delete location information when enabled.