A new report claims that Google is facing new legal action in Europe as well as in the US for allegedly tracking the locations of phones without getting the consent of the users.
In the US, the lawsuit is already in progress but in Europe Google is said to be breaking the law by breaching GDPR protections. If the company is found guilty, it may face a fine of up to four percent of its annual turnover.
While some smartphone users have turned off tracking locations on their devices, it appears that Google usually turns it back on and Reuters reports that the company may face legal action from regulators in seven European countries. Consumer agencies in these seven countries have asked privacy regulators to take action against Google for allegedly tracking the movements of millions of users in European privacy laws.
There are allegations that Google uses various methods to encourage the user to enable the settings found in “location history’ and ‘web and app activity’. Both are integrated into all Google user accounts. It is said that users are left in the dark about Google’s use of their private or personal data.
Heavier than that, it is claimed that these practices are not compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) seeing that Google lacks a valid legal ground for processing the data. The report shows that in particular that user consent provided in these instances are not freely given.
Take for example Apple’s iOS. Users are protected in that apps cannot just track iPhone users unless they authorize the apps. Even with that, they can decide when to switch locations on and off while using the app. However, for Android users, they do not have the same level of protection as the operating system controlled by Google.
Google has replied that this situation of location track turning on for devices, it only happens when users had enabled and then pause location tracking. Location History is said to be turned off by default and the user can edit, delete or pause it as desired. If the location tracking is on by default, it helps improve other service like predicted traffic on the roads.
