Google Photos feature leads to a $100M settlement payout over privacy law violation

• Google has agreed to a $100 million settlement that it will pay in violation of state law.
• A feature in Google Photos was found to have violated Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA).
• Valid claims are estimated to receive anywhere between $200 and $400 from the settlement.

The lawsuit alleged that a feature in the photo service violated state law. Face Grouping uses artificial intelligence to organize people into groups so they are easier to find.

The Illinois Biometric Information Protection Act (BIPA) requires companies to provide written policy over the data collected, including "retina or iris scans, fingerprints, voiceprints, or scans of hand or face geometry" How long the data will be kept and how it will be destroyed must be stated in the policy.

The lawsuit claimed that the company failed to give proper notice and consented. The company will have to inform users about face grouping in photos. The company insists that the grouping feature is not public.

"We're pleased to resolve this matter relating to specific laws in Illinois, and we remain committed to building easy-to-use controls for our users," a spokesman for the search engine giant said. If you want to find old photos and memories of the same person, you need to organize pictures of the same person. If you want, you can turn off this function if you want.

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Users can submit a claim if they have appeared in a photo in a photo sharing website. It is thought that users can get between $200 and $400 per claim. You have less than a month to submit a claim.