Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against Google. Paxton‘s lawsuit comes in accordance with Texas’ Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act which means in Texas, companies are not allowed to collect and use someone’s biometric information without their consent, especially for commercial purposes. 

Attorney General Paxton’s 30 page lawsuit claims that the big tech giant has done just that. “Google has now spent years unlawfully capturing the faces and voices of both non-consenting users and nonusers throughout Texas—including our children and grandparents, who simply have no idea that their biometric information is being mined for profit by a global corporation,” wrote Attorney General Paxton

Paxton described the two main avenues Google has been collected biometric information: through face and voice.

“Against this pervasive backdrop of Google Photos, many Texans do not know or understand that Google powers Google Photos by recording and analyzing sensitive biometric information,” wrote Paxton.

Face grouping in Google photos groups together the same face from a variety of photos and videos. But face grouping is also scanning every face in a photo, including those in the background of a picture or video by happenstance. Paxton is arguing this captures the face of people who have not consented to having their faces scanned. 

Paxton also went after Google Assistant. “When activated by a simple “hey Google,” Google Assistant records what it hears. In Google’s own words, ‘Google records your voice and audio, plus a few seconds before when you use audio activations.’” Nest Hub Max has facial and voice recognition to promote specific user content. 

Paxton explains that the more scanning Google does on devices, the better the AI gets, and the more technologically dominant Google becomes. Additionally, this is how big tech companies customize your experience on their devices (not just on Google but also on social media), for greater advertisement targeting. The goal is to create a personalized market for advertisers to reach the correct people. 

“Google’s all-encompassing effort to use its commercial products to capture biometric identifiers of unwitting Texan users and non-users alike is alarming,” said Paxton. “It is also unlawful under the Texas Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act, which the Texas Legislature specifically designed to protect Texans’ privacy by preventing such conduct.”

This can be anyone in your home if you have Google Nest, this can be on your photos if you have Google photos, and that’s all these ways we want to be connected or have smart homes. Paxton argues that these devises are taking in all biometric information in the area without the consent of millions of Texans which includes the elderly and small children. 

“On information and belief, at no point does Google affirmatively inform users, much less nonusers, that records of their biometric identifiers are being captured and stored. Nor does Google affirmatively obtain consent to capture and store records of biometric identifiers from users or non-users who appear in photos and videos uploaded to Google Photos,” said Paxton

Paxton labled the criminal exposure one could get if this information was in the wrong hands. “The power of modern technology means that a criminal can utilize photos of a face taken from a long distance or photos of a face that is partially obstructed,” said Paxton. “Criminals also can simply find and use photos on social media platforms and other public sources. Criminals can then use images of others’ faces to find, steal, and use other data on those individuals, including phone numbers, bank accounts, addresses, relatives, and employment information. Facial recognition thus makes stalking, identity theft, and similar crimes easier.”

Google does store biometric information and claims that it does so with the consent of its users. When you go to Google’s privacy policy, Google does explain that it detects face models when face grouping is on. Google says you can also turn off face grouping and that will stop the algorithm. 

Google also admits to storing, not only voices, but utterances, languages, and even the country one speaks from. The AI is trained to “better recognize the correct search query if [one has] given [their] consent to use such data. It sends those voices and utterances to Google when you use the Voice Function.”

Furthermore, Google’s data deletion policy states that, “some data you can delete whenever you like, some data is deleted automatically, and some data we retain for longer periods of time when necessary. When you delete data, we follow a deletion policy to make sure that your data is safely and completely removed from our servers or retained only in anonymized form.” But that anonymized form is the generalization of the data or they construe up the data set.

Google spokesman Jose Castaneda stated, “AG Paxton is once again mischaracterizing our products in another breathless lawsuit. We will set the record straight in court,” according to Reuters.