Google has agreed to a $1.375 billion settlement with the state of Texas over a 2022 lawsuit that alleged it had been collecting and using biometric data of millions of Texans without properly acquiring their consent.
The office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced the settlement agreement, which called it a ‘historic win’ for the state, noting that it’s the highest recovery nationwide against Google.
“To date, no state has attained a settlement against Google for similar data-privacy violations greater than $93 million,” commented Paxton’s office in the announcement.
“Even a multistate coalition that included forty states secured just $391 million—almost a billion dollars less than Texas’s recovery.”
Google was accused of violating the state’s biometric privacy act, which dictates that companies must clearly inform users and get their consent before collecting biometric identifiers such as fingerprints, voice, hand scans, and retina/iris scans.
According to the lawsuit, since at least 2015, Google has unlawfully (without consent) collected Texans’ face and voice scans to empower its targeted advertising business.
Additionally, Google was accused of persistently tracking Texans who used its products and services, constantly logging their location and searches made while in Chrome’s incognito mode.
Paxton underlined that nobody is above the law, and Big Tech will not be left unchecked.
A Google spokesperson told BleepingComputer that this settlement covers two cases and three claims, all of which have already resulted in product/procedure changes in the tech giant’s products and services, so no further action is required.
“This settles a raft of old claims, many of which have already been resolved elsewhere, concerning product policies we have long since changed,” said Google spokesperson José Castañeda.
“We are pleased to put them behind us, and we will continue to build robust privacy controls into our services.”
Google also noted that the settlement is not an admission of wrongdoing or liability.
Under AG Paxton, Texas has had successful motions against tech giants in recent years.
A highlighted example is a $1.4 billion July 2024 settlement with Meta for unlawfully collecting and using facial recognition data.
In January 2025, Paxton filed a lawsuit targeting car insurer Allstate and its subsidiary Arity for unlawfully collecting, using, and re-selling driving data from over 45 million Americans, violating TDPSA, the Data Broker Law, and the Texas Insurance Code.
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