There has been a development in the ongoing Rivera vs Google case in Illinois, USA. Well it is more of an outcome rather than development as the lawsuit filed against Google which claimed that its photo sharing and storage service violated people’s privacy, was dismissed on Saturday by a U.S. judge on the basis of lack of “concrete injuries”.
The lawsuit was filed by a woman in 2016 when she alleged that Google’s parent company – Alphabet Inc. violated the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act by collecting and storing biometric data from people’s photographs using facial recognition software without their permission through its Google Photos service.
The plaintiffs petitioned for a fine of $ 5000 for each intentional violation, or $ 1000 for each negligent violation, totalling upto a whopping $ 5 million in fines for the “hundreds of thousands” of state residents affected.
But Google contended by claiming that the plaintiffs were not entitled to money or injunctive relief because they had suffered no harm. And the U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang in Chicago gave Google the benefit of the doubt, granting a motion for summary judgment. He said that the court lacked “subject matter jurisdiction because plaintiffs have not suffered concrete injuries.”
In the past, apart from Google, even Facebook and Snapchat have been under fire for violation of the harsh laws of Illinois State. However, of the three companies, Google is the first to win a dismissal of a lawsuit over the biometric privacy act, The Verge report said.
