Australia’s consumer watchdog has begun legal action against Google Australia for allegeding engaging in misleading conduct and making misleading or false representations about how it collects, keeps and uses people’s data.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) lodged claims to the Federal Court accusing the tech giant of breaching Australian Consumer Law.
The case focuses on two Google Account settings; Location History and Web & App Activity.
The watchdog claims that from at least January 2017 the tech giant breached Australian Consumer Law when it made on-screen representations on Android phones and tablets which, as the ACCC alleges, misled consumers about location data Google collected or used when certain Google Account settings were enabled or disabled.
“We are taking court action against Google because we allege that as a result of these on-screen representations, Google has collected, kept and used highly sensitive and valuable personal information about consumers’ location without them making an informed choice,” ACCC chair Rod Sims says.
Google allegedly failed to properly disclose to consumers from January 2017 to late 2018 that both settings needed to be switched off if consumers didn’t want Google to collect, keep and use their location data.
Instead, consumers were led to believe Location History was the only Google Account setting that affected whether Google collected, kept or used data about their location, the ACCC alleges. Google also failed to inform users that by leaving Web & App Activity switched on, Google would continue to collect location data.
The ACCC also alleges that from around mid-2018 until late 2018, Google represented to consumers that the only way they could prevent Google from collecting, keeping and using their location data was to stop using certain Google services, including Google Search and Google Maps. However, this could be achieved by switching off both ‘Location History’ and ‘Web & App Activity’.
The ACCC also alleges that from March 2017 and from May 2018, when a users accessed Location History setting, Google displayed on-screen messages that represented location data would only be collected and used by Google for the consumer’s use of Google services. The tech giant didn’t disclose that the data may be used by Google for a number of other purposes unrelated to the consumer’s use of Google’s services.
“We consider that because of Google’s failure to disclose this use of data, consumers were and still are deprived of the opportunity to make an informed choice about whether to share their personal location data with Google,” Sims says.
In its Digital Platform Inquiry released in July, the ACCC flagged an investigation into how Google represented its collection of data.
The watchdog is seeking penalties against Google, orders that require Google to issue corrective notices, and the establishment of a compliance program.
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