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Google Facing Lawsuit Over Misusing Personal Data to Train Its AI Models
Tech giant Google LLC (NASDAQ: GOOGL) has been hit with a lawsuit following its latest privacy policy update. The lawsuit filed by eight individuals on behalf of “millions of class members” in a federal court in California accuses Google of violating users’ privacy. In particular, internet users and copyright holders complained about the company using their data to train its artificial intelligence (AI) systems.
The text of the lawsuit reads:
“It has very recently come to light that Google has been secretly stealing everything ever created and shared on the internet by hundreds of millions of Americans. Google has taken all our personal and professional information, our creative and copywritten works, our photographs, and even our emails — virtually the entirety of our digital footprint — and is using it to build commercial Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) Products like “Bard,” the chatbot Google recently released to compete with OpenAI’s “ChatGPT.” For years, Google harvested this data in secret, without notice or consent from anyone.”
Lawyers of Clarkson Law Firm – the agency that brought the lawsuit – have named Google, its parent company Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOGL), and Google’s AI subsidiary DeepMind as defendants. None of them have provided any comments.
Tim Giordano, one of the attorneys at Clarkson, commented:
“Google needs to understand that ‘publicly available’ has never meant free to use for any purpose. Our personal information and our data is our property, and it’s valuable, and nobody has the right to just take it and use it for any purpose.”
As per the lawsuit, the damages brought by Google are equal to over $5 billion. In addition to financial compensation, the lawyers have requested an order to obtain Google users’ explicit permission to use their data first. It includes clear and precise disclosure of the data the company is collecting, as well as the introduction of technological safety measures that “prevent the technology from surpassing human intelligence and harming others.”
Google’s Updated AI Policy
Starting in July 2023, Google has introduced significant changes to its privacy policy. Now, the company can use publicly available information to help train its AI models. Besides, instead of using personal data for developing new features, Google can now employ information to create full products.
The company stated:
“Google uses information to improve our services and to develop new products, features, and technologies that benefit our users and the public. For example, we use publicly available information to help train Google’s AI models and build products and features like Google Translate, Bard, and Cloud AI capabilities.”
The policy update has received a wave of criticism. The updated policy specifies that publicly available information is used to train Google’s AI products, however, it is not clarified if and how Google will prevent copyrighted materials from being included in that database.
Google Facing Lawsuit Over Misusing Personal Data to Train Its AI Models
