Have you ever heard of someone suing a tech giant like Google? How about children suing Google? That's the case in this article in which two children are suing Google for allegedly violating privacy laws with their educational tools.
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What's The Scoop
Two children are suing Google for allegedly collecting biometric data, like face scans, of millions of students through the search giant's software tools used in classrooms all over the country. The lawsuit was filed Thursday in a federal court in San Jose, California. Is seeking a class-action lawsuit status.
The children whose initials start with H.K and J.C. are the ones who filed the complaint, are suing through their father, Clinton Farwell.
Google has been using its services to create "voiceprints" and face templates for children, through a program in which the search giant provides school districts all across the country with Chromebooks and also free access to G Suite for Education apps, the complaint states.
The apps include student versions of Gmail, Google Docs, and Calendar.
The data collection would most likely violate Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act or also called BIPA. In which it regulates facial recognition, fingerprinting, and all other biometric technologies in the state of Chicago. This would also likely be hit the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act or also called COPPA, in which federal law that requires sites to get parental consent when collecting parental information from users who are under 13 years old.
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The lawsuit says, "Google has complete control over the data collection, use, and retention practices of the 'G Suite for Education' service, including the biometric data and other personally identifying information collected through the use of the service, and uses this control not only to secretly and unlawfully monitor and profile children but to do so without the knowledge or consent of those children's parents,"
Bloomberg has tried to get a comment from Google, in which the latter has declined to do so.
What Are They Asking For in Return?
The complaint is asking for damages of over 1,000 USD for each member of the class for BIPA violations that Google committed "negligently," or around 5,000 USD each for each offense committed "intentionally or recklessly."
This lawsuit empathizes Google's dominance over the American classrooms, which has only garnered attention in recent weeks. Schools now depend more and more on the tech giant's educational tools as they are starting to go to class remotely rather than physical courses around the nation due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Several states right now are enacting stay-at-home orders, and the usage of Google's tools has soared. The downloads alone for Google Classroom, which helps teachers create online classes, have up to over 50 million downloads, which makes it the number one education app on Apple's iOS and also Google's Android platforms.
Google has also announced on Thursday that they will be partnering with California Gov. Gavin Newsom to donate over 4,000 Chromebooks to students all across the sunny state.
