Two schoolchildren have sued Google, alleging that it’s illegally collecting their voiceprints, faceprints and other personally identifiable information (PII).
The students were identified only as HK and JC in the
complaint, which was filed on Thursday in San Jose, CA, in the US District Court of Northern California. The children are suing through their father, Clinton Farwell. The complaint notes that Google has infiltrated the country’s primary and secondary school systems by distributing its Chromebook laptops, which come pre-installed with its G Suite for Education platform. That suite includes student versions of Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, and other Google apps. In order to use those apps, the kids had to speak into the laptop’s audio recording device so Google could record their voices, and they had to look into the laptop’s camera so Google could scan their faces.
According to the lawsuit, over half of the nation’s school children use Google’s education products, including those in Illinois, most of whom are under the age of 13. Illinois comes into play because it’s got the strictest biometrics privacy law in the land: the Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). BIPA requires private entities – like Google – to first get our informed consent before collecting our biometrics, including faceprints and voiceprints.
