Privacy eccentric browser, Brave, filed a formal GDPR complaint to European authorities on Google’s violation of the Act and its own privacy policies. Ireland, the headquarters of the European data privacy regulators, U.K, France and Germany have all received the complaint, with Dr. Johnny Ryan, Brave Chief Policy Officer, leading the charge.

Brave has filed a formal GDPR complaint against Google for infringing the GDPR “purpose limitation” principle. Enforcement would be tantamount to a functional separation of Google’s business. https://t.co/zN7Q2WsL1n

— Brave Software (@brave) March 16, 2020

Dr. Ryan wrote on Twitter on Mar. 16 that Brave browser filed a formal complaint to relevant European authorities on Google’s infringement of Article 5 (1) of the General Data Privacy Regulations (GDPR) Act and its own privacy policies. The Act puts forward the “purpose limitation” principle which states that companies should only use data collected for a specific purpose for that purpose only. Dr. Johnny Ryan said,

“But merely having everyone’s personal data does not mean Google is allowed to use that data across its entire business, for whatever purposes it wants. Rather, it has to seek a legal basis for each specific purpose, and be transparent about them.”

For example, Google Weather should only use your location data to better your experience in giving accurate weather predictions and not anything else. If they wish to use the data for something else, then they need to formally apply from the authorities to extend their scope.

However, according to Brave’s complaint, Google’s free data for all policy, violates the set rule as it spreads data across a number of websites, advertisers, apps and operating systems. According to a study by Brave, “Inside the Black Box”, Google “collects personal data from integrations with websites, apps, and operating systems, for hundreds ill-defined processing purposes.”

Vaguely defining the purposes has seen Google share users’ data across a number of purposes with in turn violated the GDPR Act. Ryan said,

“Brave’s new evidence reveals that Google reuses our personal data between its businesses and products in bewildering ways that infringe the purpose limitation principle. Google’s internal data free-for-all infringes the GDPR”.

Well, the widespread data privacy issues hanging in the balance of this formal complaint are gigantic to future privacy laws on data. According to the complaint, a ruling in favor of Brave’s proposition and Google’s enforcement of the GDPR would “be tantamount to a functional separation, giving everyone the power to decide what parts of Google they chose to reward with their data.”

This will increase the privacy of your data and kill off the monopoly around Google’s internal data free for all policy.

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