Google to pay $60m fine for secretly taking user location data

The tech giant’s penalty is one of the largest in Australian corporate history.

Chair of the ACCC Gina Cass-Gottlieb. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

The Federal Court has ordered Google to pay a $60m fine for collecting Android location data without user consent, following court action brought by Australia’s competition and consumer watchdog, in one of the largest ever penalties in corporate Australian history.

The ACCC estimated that some 1.3 million users in Australia may have viewed a screen on Android devices found by the Federal Court to have breached consumer law.

The screen, titled ‘location history’, conveyed that it was the only setting that affected whether Google collected and used personally identifiable location data, the court found, when another setting titled ‘web and app activity’ also allowed the tech giant to collect, store and use personally identifiable location data.

The issue began in January 2017 until Google fixed it through a software update to its Android operating system in December 2018. The tech giant jointly submitted with the ACCC that its fine was appropriate.

“This significant penalty imposed by the Court today sends a strong message to digital platforms and other businesses, large and small, that they must not mislead consumers about how their data is being collected and used,” ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said.

The ACCC estimated that some 1.3 million users in Australia may have viewed a screen found by the Federal Court to have breached consumer law. Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

“Google, one of the world’s largest companies, was able to keep the location data collected through the “Web & App Activity” setting and that retained data could be used by Google to target ads to some consumers, even if those consumers had the “Location History” setting turned off.

“Personal location data is sensitive and important to some consumers, and some of the users who saw the representations may have made different choices about the collection, storage and use of their location data if the misleading representations had not been made by Google.

“This is the first public enforcement outcome arising out of the ACCC’s Digital Platforms Inquiry.”

The court has ordered Google to train some of its staff about Australian Consumer Law and pay a contribution to the ACCC’s court costs.

“We can confirm that we’ve agreed to settle the matter concerning historical conduct from 2017-2018,” a Google spokesman told The Australian.

“We’ve invested heavily in making location information simple to manage and easy to understand with industry-first tools like auto-delete controls, while significantly minimising the amount of data stored. As we’ve demonstrated, we’re committed to making ongoing updates that give users control and transparency, while providing the most helpful products possible.”

Westpac was fined a whopping $1.3bn for breaching anti-money laundering laws in 2020, while German carmaker Volkswagen was fined $125m by the ACCC for misleading consumers about its diesel emissions.

Originally published as Google to pay $60m fine for secretly taking user location data