Google fined for invasive location tracking after BEUC complaint

The Irish Data Protection Commission has fined Google €403 million for its location-tracking activities and ordered the company to comply with the EU's GDPR within 6 months. This is an important decision, close to eight years after a series of complaints consumer organisations from the BEUC network issued against Google.  

In November 2018, eight consumer organisations from Norway, The Netherlands, Greece, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Poland, Sweden and Denmark - coordinated by the European Consumer Organisation, BEUC - filed complaints against, or reported, the way Google tracked users’ locations. Geo-location data is one of the most invasive forms of commercial surveillance because it reveals all kinds of sensitive information about us, such as our religious beliefs, our health condition, our political opinions or our sexual orientation.  

Agustín Reyna, Director General of BEUC, commented: “The decision is good news for consumers, as it holds Google accountable and confirms the illegality of the way the tech giant obtained consent to use peoples’ location data. However, the time needed to come to this conclusion is disproportionate with the seriousness of the infringement. Late enforcement can be as harmful as no enforcement at all. Consumers’ fundamental rights need to be upheld faster and better.

“Google has tracked hundreds of millions of European consumers for years to find out as much as it can about them. Location data can be incredibly sensitive because it reveals a lot about our personal lives: where our children go to school, how many times someone visited a hospital, or even a place of prayer. This is incredibly invasive, violates fundamental rights to privacy and breaches the GDPR."

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The complaints are based on research published by BEUC member Forbrukerrådet, the Norwegian consumer organisation, which illustrates how Google is using deceptive design, misleading information and repeated pushing to manipulate Android users into allowing constant tracking of their movements.

Google made changes to their platform globally as a result of this complaint, but BEUC and several members felt compelled to file a second complaint in 2022, as the problems with deceptive design was not resolved sufficiently.