New Mexico Accuses Google Of Violating Children's Data Privacy, Files Lawsuit

New Mexico has sued Alphabet Inc's GOOGL Google for allegedly violating children’s data privacy.

What Happened

A lawsuit filed by New Mexico’s attorney general Hector Balderas on Thursday alleged that Alphabet-owned Google collected information such as physical locations of students, internet searches, passwords, voice recordings, visits to websites, and videos viewed on YouTube through its Google Education Platform.

The case filed in a federal court in Albuquerque, stated, “Google is aware of how problematic it is to mine children’s data in a commercial context.” 

Children under the age of 13 are forbidden to own their own Google accounts in the United States. The complaint says, “Google attempts to get around this by using Google Education to secretly gain access to troves of information.”

Google has refuted the allegations, the Wall Street Journal reports. The company said that claims made by New Mexico’s attorney general were factually wrong. In an emailed statement, Google clarified that G Suite for Education allows schools to “control account access” and requires that schools obtain the necessary parental consent. 

The search engine giant said, “We do not use personal information from users in primary and secondary schools to target ads.”

Why It Matters

A Futuresource Consulting report states that Google dominates K-12 classrooms, with 60% of all devices purchased being Chromebooks. Rivals Microsoft Corporation MSFT and Apple Inc. AAPL follow with 22% and 18% shares, respectively.

Google paid $170 million to settle allegations made by the Federal Trade Commission and the New York Attorney General regarding the illegal collection of personal information from children without parental consent in September 2019.

Price Action

Alphabet class A shares traded 0.52% lower at $1,516.99 on Thursday. The shares were unchanged in the after-hours session. 

The company’s class C shares traded 0.54% lower at $1,510 in the after-hours market. The shares had closed the regular session 0.56% lower at $1,518.15.