The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has made world history by taking online giant Google to court and winning on behalf of consumers.
Chair of the ACCC, Rod Sims said that following the Commission’s world-first enforcement action, the Federal Court found Google had misled consumers about personal location data collected through Android mobile devices.
“Between January 2017 and December 2018, consumers were led to believe that ‘Location History’ was the only account setting that affected the collection of their personal location data,” Mr Sims said.
“In fact, another Google Account setting titled ‘Web & App Activity’ also enabled Google to collect, store and use personally identifiable location data when it was turned on, and that setting was turned on by default,” he said.
“This is an important victory for consumers, especially anyone concerned about their privacy online, as the Court’s decision sends a strong message to Google and others that big businesses must not mislead their customers.”
Mr Sims said the Court found consumers were misled twice by Google, once during the initial set-up of their devices and again when they switched off the ‘Location History’ setting, after initial set-up, and weren’t informed that by leaving the ‘Web & App Activity’ setting switched on, Google would continue to collect their personally identifiable location data.
“Companies that collect information must explain their settings clearly and transparently so consumers are not misled,” he said.
“Consumers should not be kept in the dark when it comes to the collection of their personal location data.”
Mr Sims said the ACCC would be seeking declarations, pecuniary penalties, publications orders, and compliance orders, all to be determined at a later date.
He said that if Android phone users wanted to stop Google collecting personally identifiable location information, they could do so by switching off the ‘Location’ setting in their Google Account as well as the ‘Web & App Activity’ setting.
