Texas AG secures record breaking privacy settlement with Google

In a major development in the battle over consumer data privacy, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has reached a $1.375 billion settlement with Google that resolves two lawsuits that accused the tech giant of illegally collecting personal data, including biometrics, from Texans without their informed consent.

The agreement represents the largest state-level privacy settlement ever secured against Google and is part of a broader campaign by Texas to hold Big Tech companies accountable under state privacy laws. Paxton’s office called the settlement an “historic win for Texans’ data privacy and security rights and marking the highest recovery nationwide against Google for any attorney general’s enforcement of state privacy laws.”

“To date, no state has attained a settlement against Google for similar data-privacy violations greater than $93 million.” Paxton’s office said. “Even a multistate coalition that included forty states secured just $391 million—almost a billion dollars less than Texas’s recovery.”

The lawsuits at the heart of the settlement were originally filed in 2022 and focused on Google’s practices surrounding geolocation tracking, web browsing data, and biometric information. According to the complaints, Google continued to track users’ physical locations even after they had disabled location settings on their devices.

The state also alleged that Google collected data from users browsing in Chrome’s incognito mode, despite marketing claims that the mode offered private or anonymous web activity. In perhaps the most serious allegation, Texas asserted that Google harvested biometric identifiers such as voiceprints and facial geometry without obtaining clear and informed consent as required under the Texas Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act.

Texas’s biometric privacy law is among the strongest in the country, mirroring some aspects of Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act, and which has led to similar multi-million dollar legal actions. Under Texas law, companies are prohibited from collecting or storing biometric information without first notifying individuals and obtaining affirmative consent.

Paxton’s lawsuit accused Google of disregarding these safeguards by embedding voice and facial recognition technologies in products such as Google Assistant, Nest devices, and Google Photos, without properly informing users or giving them the option to opt out.

The $1.375 billion settlement comes without an admission of wrongdoing from Google. The company has not acknowledged any violation of Texas law and will not be required to alter its products or implement new consumer disclosures as part of the agreement.

Google spokesperson José Castañeda described the resolution as a way to conclude what he characterized as “a raft of old claims” related to practices the company says it has already changed. He reiterated Google’s commitment to building privacy protections into its services, asserting that the company has enhanced user controls and transparency in recent years.

Despite the lack of structural reform mandates in the settlement, Paxton has heralded the outcome as a historic win for privacy rights in Texas. He emphasized that the size of the penalty reflects the severity and duration of Google’s alleged misconduct.

“In Texas, Big Tech is not above the law,” Paxton said. “For years, Google secretly tracked people’s movements, private searches, and even their voiceprints and facial geometry through their products and services. I fought back and won. This $1.375 billion settlement is a major win for Texans’ privacy and tells companies that they will pay for abusing our trust. I will always protect Texans by stopping Big Tech’s attempts to make a profit by selling away our rights and freedoms.”

This agreement follows a similar legal victory by the Texas Attorney General’s office in July 2024, when Meta agreed to pay $1.4 billion to resolve a lawsuit over the unauthorized collection of facial recognition data from Facebook users. That settlement was also touted as the largest privacy-related settlement ever obtained by a single state at the time.

With the new Google agreement nearly matching that amount, Paxton has now secured two of the largest digital privacy settlements in U.S. history within less than a year, solidifying his office’s aggressive approach to digital consumer protection.

The Google settlement has yet to be finalized by the court, but it already represents a significant milestone in state-level efforts to regulate the conduct of global technology firms. While Congress has stalled for years on passing comprehensive federal privacy legislation, states like Texas and Illinois have increasingly taken the lead in litigating alleged violations of biometric and digital rights laws.

Critics of Google argue that the absence of strong national standards has allowed these companies to exploit gray areas in data collection, while privacy advocates hope that high-dollar settlements like this one will force the industry to adopt more transparent and ethical practices.

The outcome of Texas’s legal fight with Google may also influence future litigation and regulatory actions in other jurisdictions. Legal experts note that the Texas case relied on existing laws and consumer protection principles that could be applied similarly in states with comparable biometric statutes or consumer rights laws.

Although Google did not admit guilt, the size of the settlement may encourage other states or plaintiffs to pursue similar claims. In that sense, the case is a potential turning point in how state attorneys general use their authority to police digital privacy violations in the absence of federal action.

While Google’s $1.3 billion payout does not come with product modifications or direct consumer restitution, it marks a symbolic and financial reckoning for practices that many have long criticized as opaque or exploitative.

Whether this will lead to more substantive changes in how Google and other social media providers handles sensitive user data remains uncertain. The political message on the other hand is unambiguous. Technology giants must respect individuals’ privacy rights or face legal consequences measured in the billions.

Article Topics

biometric data  |  biometric identifiers  |  biometrics  |  CUBI  |  data privacy  |  facial recognition  |  Google  |  lawsuits  |  Texas  |  voice biometrics