The tech behemoth Google is once more having problems. The internet giant has been charged with using people’s biometric information without their permission. On Thursday, October 21, the US State of Texas filed a lawsuit in this regard. The lawsuit claimed that Google had collected biometric information on Texans, including voice notes and face details, in violation of state law in order to make money. The business, however, has refuted these claims and vowed to clear its name in court. “Google’s indiscriminate gathering of the personal information of Texans, including particularly sensitive information like biometric identifiers, will not be accepted,” general attorney Jen Paxton stated in a statement, according to AFP.
Conservative Republican Paxton has brought multiple cases against tech firms like Meta. In an interview with AFP, a Google representative claimed that the lawyer is suing the tech giant once more in a “breathless lawsuit,” but went on to clarify that Google Photos uses a technology that groups photos of people with similar facial features together to make it easier for users to find them. The spokesman added that users are the only ones who can access this feature; it is disabled for everyone else.
Comparable to this, the voice notes, Face Match, and other similar basic characteristics of Google Assistant make it easier for users to identify them and find the information they need. The primary cause of the case is the lack of a clear federal regulation governing the gathering of data, which led to the creation of state-level legislation in numerous US states.