GOOGLE has agreed to pay users $100million / £80million after being accused of putting people’s faces in a recognition tool without asking for permission.
The firm’s Photos app detects faces and groups them up so it’s easier to find shots of the same person.
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But the tech giant allegedly broke a law in Illinois.
The suit claims that Google failed to get consent from millions of people, breaching the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act.
As a result, the company has agreed to pay a settlement.
It’s not clear how much each person will be able to claim, but only those in Illinois are eligible.
The actual cash amount that an individual will receive will depend on the number of valid claims, lawyers said.
Compensation will be available to anyone in the state who appeared in the photo app between May 1, 2015 and April 25, 2022.
Those entitled can apply via a dedicated website until September 24.
By settling, Google does not actually admit any wrongdoing and the court never got to decide who was right or wrong.
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The firm will “develop, publish and abide by a retention policy in which it will commit to deleting face models or face templates associated with Google Photos user’s accounts,” the official filing states.
Google’s not the only tech giant to pay a settlement lately.
Last month, Apple agreed to a $20million / £16million payout over a botched iOS update.
The case had raged on since 2015, when a group claimed iOS 9 made their iPhone 4S handsets slow down so much that they had to buy new phones.
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This post first appeared on Thesun.co.uk
