Google May Question Texas Officials in Biometric Privacy Case, Says Appeals Court
The 15th Texas Court of Appeals ruled last week that Google is allowed to question Texas officials in a lawsuit alleging that the corporation unlawfully collected biometric privacy data of millions of Texas residents without their consent.
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“In short, although it may have had legitimate grounds for claiming Google’s deposition request and the topics listed were duplicative or implicate privileged topics, the State failed to sufficiently prove its objections to at least some of Google’s deposition topics,” said the opinion. “Instead, it relied on its sweeping claim that it never has to sit for a deposition in an enforcement action, even though it admits that some of the deposition topics are relevant to its lawsuit against Google.”
The state sued Google in 2022 over Google Photos, Google Nest Hub Max and Google Assistant for allegedly violating the state's Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier law.
“For more than a decade, Texas has prohibited companies from capturing Texans’ biometric data -- including the unique characteristics of an individual’s face and voice -- without their informed, advance consent,” said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) in the lawsuit. “In blatant defiance of that law, Google has, since at least 2015, collected biometric data from innumerable Texans and used their faces and their voices to serve Google’s commercial ends.”
A lower court held in July that Google would not be able to question Texas officials, after the state filed an opposition to the motion. Google had requested to depose Texas and its legal team on a variety of topics, including penalties-related information and the state’s understanding of the law and how Google violated it.