Stacey Higginbotham and Daniel Wroclawski report: On a recent Thursday afternoon, a Consumer Reports journalist received an email containing a grainy image of herself waving at a doorbell camera she’d set up at her back door. If the message came from a complete stranger, it would have been alarming. Instead, it was sent by Steve…
Category: Breaches
Judge Trims Claims in Meta ‘Voiceprint’ Capture Privacy Lawsuit
Skye Witley reports: Meta Platforms Inc. must defend claims it violated an Illinois biometric privacy law by capturing its users’ voices, a California federal judge ruled in denying the social media platform’s dismissal motion. Judge Susan Illston was convinced that voice recording tools embedded in Meta’s communication platform, Messenger, qualified as “voiceprints” protected from nonconsensual collection…
Google Must Defend Revived Claim Over Use of Android Phone Data
Peter Hayes reports: Android cellphone users won partial reinstatement of a proposed class action alleging Google LLC illegally consumes the data they purchase from their cellular providers each month. The plaintiffs alleged Google “has programmed the Android operating system to secretly send and receive a large amount of information to and from Google using Plaintiffs’ cellular data.” They asserted claims of…
BNSF Settles Illinois Biometric Privacy Case for $75 Million (1)
Stephen Joyce and Skye Witley report: BNSF Railway Co. Monday agreed to pay $75 million to settle a landmark Illinois biometrics privacy case after a jury found the company violated the privacy rights of thousands of employees, a decrease from an initial award $228 million. “The Settlement Agreement before the Court, if approved, will resolve the…