Google has agreed to pay $ 100 million to Illinois residents to arrange a group lawsuit over one of its facial recognition features in Google Photos (via Gizmodo). The lawsuit alleges that Google’s face grouping tool, which automatically identifies your face in photos and videos uploaded to Photos, violates Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA).
Introduced in 2008, the BIPA prohibits companies from collecting and storing any kind of biometric data, including “retinal or iris scanning, fingerprinting, fingerprinting or hand or face geometry scanning” without writing an individual aware of why it is collecting this. kind of data and how long it plans to keep it. Google “directly violates” this law, the complaint statesas it is supposed to collect and analyze a person’s facial structure in connection with their facial grouping trait “without providing notice, obtaining informed written consent or publishing data retention policies.”
Google has agreed to pay $ 100 million as a result of the group suit, and it is required to provide users with notice of the face grouping feature. So, if you are (or have been) a resident of Illinois who appeared in a photo or video on Google Photos between May 1, 2015 and April 25, 2022, you have until September 24, 2022 to submit a statement on the settlement’s website. According to the class notice, you can get anywhere between $ 200 and $ 400, depending on court costs and how many people file a claim. The final approval session for the compromise will be held on September 28.
“We are excited to resolve this issue in relation to specific laws in Illinois, and we remain committed to building easy-to-use controls for our users,” Google spokesman José Castañeda said in a statement. The Edge. “Google Photos can group similar faces to help you organize images of the same person so you can easily find old photos and memories. Of course, all of this is only visible to you and you can easily disable this feature if you want.”
Last year, Facebook was ordered to pay $ 650 million as part of another group lawsuit in Illinois. The complaint claimed the platform now-discontinued Label Suggestions a tool that analyzes users ’faces in photos and provided suggestions on who the face may belong to, collected and stored biometric data in violation of state biometric privacy laws. Snapchat is also facing a similar group lawsuit in Illinoisclaiming that the service “illegally” collects voice pressure and facial geometry data from users with its various lenses and filters.