Yahoo Finance Google faces lawsuit over tracking users even after they turn 'location history' off
A lawsuit has accused Google of illegally tracking the location of users using their searches and web activity.
The tracking continues even if users turn off "Location History", according to an investigation by the Associated Press and Princeton University last week.
A separate function, Web & App Activity, continues to store data on the location of iPhone and Android users.
San Diego resident Napoleon Patacsil issued the legal challenge in California. He stated that Google's "principal goal was to surreptitiously monitor [the claimant] and to allow third-parties to do the same".
If a class action is granted, millions of smartphone users in the US could try and join the case. Patacsil is seeking unspecified damages for Google’s alleged violations of privacy laws.
The legal challenge is one of the first issued under California's Consumer Privacy Act, which was brought in earlier this year and is considered to be the state's own version of Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
GDPR is an EU regulation that came into force on May 25 under which companies must have a valid and lawful purpose when collecting data such as location.
One of these is that the individual has given clear consent for the company to process their personal data for a specific purpose.
Companies that break the data rules can face fines of £17.5m of up to 4pc of global turnover, which could potentially add up to a £3.79 billion fine for Google parent company Alphabet.
Google has yet to face a challenge over this specific aspect of its location tracking in Europe.
In May this year, Austrian privacy advocate Max Schrems filed complaints against Google and Facebook accusing them of not securing user consent under European data laws. The claim accused Google of "wilfully and intentionally [breaching] the consent requirements imposed by the GDPR".
With much data collection, companies must ask users to opt-in to allow them to store the data. Ahead of the latest revelations, Google's support policy said: "With Location History off, the places you go are no longer stored."
"At first sight it would be hard to see how this would be legal under GDPR," Schrems said. "It seems unclear to me which legal basis they could argue for this."
Campaigners have said this statement misled users. Privacy campaign organisation Big Brother Watch accused Google last week of harvesting the data "secretly, against people’s will".
Privacy Matters founder Pat Walshe said: "Much depends on whether the practice was pre-GDPR and the consent process under GDPR if they are still doing it."
On Friday, Google updated its terms around location tracking. Google's new explainer for Location History reads: "This setting does not affect other location services on your device... some location data may be saved as part of your activity on other services, like Search and Maps.”
Google said: "We have been updating the explanatory language about Location History to make it more consistent and clear across our platforms and help centers."
