UPDATED 22:44 EDT / DECEMBER 30 2018

POLICY

Google wins dismissal of lawsuit alleging facial recognition abuse

A long-running lawsuit filed against Google LLC over its alleged abuse of its facial recognition systems was dismissed Saturday by a Chicago court.

The plaintiffs in the case, which dates back to March 2016, argued that Google had violated Illinois state law by collecting and storing the biometric data of people’s photographs from its Google Photos service using its facial recognition software.

However, U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang dismissed the suit, saying the court “lacked subject matter jurisdiction because plaintiffs have not suffered concrete injuries” from the practice.

Judge Chang’s ruling puts to bed one of three lawsuits against big technology firms in the state that have been accused of violating the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act. BIPA, said to be the strongest biometrics-related privacy law in the U.S., allows state residents to sue for damages if they believe their rights have been violated.

Cases against the other two tech firms, Facebook Inc. and Snap Inc. are still pending, Bloomberg reported.

In the Google case, plaintiffs had sought more than $5 million in collective damages for “hundreds of thousands” of Illinois citizens they said were affected. They had asked the court for $5,000 to be awarded for each intentional violation of BIPA, and $1,000 for each negligent violation.

Google allegedly violated BIPA by collecting facial recognition data without the express consent of the people concerned. The company did so by extracting millions of “face templates” from images uploaded to the Google Photos service. These included the faces of thousands of people who’d never signed up for the service, but whose images were uploaded to the site through other means.

“Google never informed unwitting non-users who had their face templates collected of the specific purpose and length of term for which their biometric identifiers or information would be collected, stored, and used, nor did Google obtain a written release from any of these individuals,” the plaintiffs charged in the case.

Before winning the case, Google was actively pushing for an amendment to the BIPA law, joining several other firms that use biometric technology for justifiable employment and health and safety reasons. The companies supported an amendment that would have exempted photos from the law, Bloomberg reported last April.

Image: QUT Media/Flickr

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