Google Hit With Lawsuit Over Data Collection on School Kids (1)

Google LLC is unlawfully using its products—ubiquitous in K-12 education—to secretly gather information about school age children, substituting the consent of the school for that of parents, a proposed class action filed in California federal court said Monday.

The tech giant collects not only traditional education records “but thousands of data points that span a child’s life,” and “neither students nor their parents have agreed to this arrangement, according to the US District Court for the Northern District of California complaint.

Google’s “Workspace for Education,” a suite of cloud-based productivity apps marketed to schools, is used by nearly 70% of K-12 schools in the US, the complaint said.

The company doesn’t disclose that it embeds hidden tracking technology in its Chrome browser that creates a child’s unique digital “fingerprint,” the plaintiffs said. The fingerprint allows Google to “to track a child even when she or her school administrator has disabled cookies or is using technologies designed to block third-party cookies.”

The suit said Google has failed to obtain parental consent to take school childrens’ personal data. “Instead, Google relies on the consent of school personnel alone,” the complaint said. “But school personnel do not have authority to provide consent in lieu of parents.”

Google allegedly uses that data to fuel its own commercial products and sells it to third parties including other education technology companies.

Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda said in a statement: “These accusations are false. Personal information from K-12 users is never used for personalized advertising, we have strong controls to protect student data, and require schools to obtain parental consent when needed.”

Education technology companies have faced a number of class actions in recent years over unauthorized data collection on students, which has drawn some interest from the Federal Trade Commission.

The plaintiffs seek to represents a nationwide class of K-12 public school students who used Google’s products, as well as a California sub-class.

The complaint alleges violations of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, the Federal Wiretap Act, and the California Invasion of Privacy Act.

George Feldman McDonald PLLC, EdTech Law Center PLLC, and Gustafson Gluek PLLC represent the plaintiffs.

The case is Schwarz v. Google LLC, N.D. Cal., No. 3:25-cv-03125, 4/7/25.