UK Edition
High Court blocks mass legal action against Google over iPhone data collection
Claimants have vowed to appeal against a “disappointing” High Court ruling on Monday that blocked their multi-million pound challenge against Google.
The tech giant was accused of unlawfully collecting the personal data of over 4.4 million iPhone users in the UK by bypassing the default privacy settings on the Apple device between June 2011 and February 2012.
The claimants stated that each person affected could claim £750 each if their action was successful.
Google won the first round of this case after the High Court dismissed the claim, allowing it to avoid a compensation bill of up to £3.3bn.
The judgment found that Google’s actions were arguably “wrongful, and a breach of duty”.
However, Mr Justice Warby ruled that each class action member may not have been affected in the same way and that claimants failed to prove that they suffered “damages” under data protection rules.
Claimants alleged Google violated iPhone privacy by effectively tricking devices into releasing personal data from the Safari web browser. This has become known as the “Safari Workaround”.
They told the court that data collected included race, physical and mental health, political leanings, sexuality, social class, financial, shopping habits and location data.
The collective High Court action was led by former Which? director Richard Lloyd. Hugh Tomlinson QC represented Mr Lloyd alongside law firm Mishcon de Reya. Anthony White QC represented Google alongside law firm Pinsent Masons.
Mr Lloyd set up a consumer campaign called Google You Owe Us as part of this legal action. The group has 20,000 people signed up to its case website. Their legal action was backed by litigation funder Therium, which guaranteed an amount of £15.5m to pay for the costs of the case, granting it first claim to any damages won from Google.
Mr Lloyd said: “Today’s judgment is extremely disappointing and effectively leaves millions of people without any practical way to seek redress and compensation when their personal data has been misused.
“Google’s business model is based on using personal data to target adverts to consumers and they must ask permission before using this data. The court accepted that people did not give permission in this case yet slammed the door shut on holding Google to account.”
A Google spokesman said: "The privacy and security of our users is extremely important to us. This claim is without merit, and we're pleased the court has dismissed it."
Google is also facing a lawsuit over its location tracking technology. The tech giant was accused of illegally tracking the movements of iPhone and Android mobile users even if they had switched off their location services.
Earlier this year, Google was hit with a record £2.14bn fine from the European Union after a seven-year investigation into claims the technology giant abused its internet search monopoly.
The penalty is the biggest ever competition fine from the European Commission, doubling the previous record handed to Intel in 2009.
The EU said Google had broken EU competition law by exploiting the power of its search engine to promote its online shopping service at the expense of other price-comparison sites.