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‘Oracle’, a world-renowned name and a major player in the tech world just got hit by a massive lawsuit, and while lawsuits are common for a business of this scale, the claims made in the lawsuit are certainly not.
Filed in the Northern District of California, the lawsuit has accused Oracle or more specifically its advertising department, saying that its ‘worldwide surveillance machine’ has gone on to collect data of over 5 billion people.
Now that’s one big number since it represents more than half of the current world population. While sounding too big to be true, these numbers have been claimed by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL), therefore putting Oracle in deep waters.
Dr. Johnny Ryan, Senior Fellow of the ICCL and one of the three representatives in the lawsuit spoke about the data and privacy violation, he said that is an important player in the tracking and data industry Oracle generates over $42.4 billion per year. He added that the tech giant “has violated the privacy of billions of people across the globe. This is a Fortune 500 company on a dangerous mission to track where every person in the world goes, and what they do. We are taking this action to stop Oracle’s surveillance machine.
Wondering about the type of user information Oracle is believed to have collected? Well, it includes sensitive things such as names, home addresses, emails, online and physical purchases, physical movement, income, interests, political views, and even detailed reports of their online activity.
According to ISSL “one Oracle database included a record of a German man who used a prepaid debit card to place a 10 euro bet on an esports betting site”. While this data may sound normal, the details of the personal information are scary and show the amount of privacy invasion tech companies are able to carry off.
Apart from Ryan, the lawsuit is also headed by Michael Katz-Lacabe and Dr. Jennifer Golbeck, who are the ‘director of research at The Center for Human Rights and a ‘computer science professors at the University of Maryland respectively. If this lawsuit plays in the plaintiff’s favor, Oracle is likely to be guilty of breaking around 5 different laws which include, the Federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the Constitution of the State of California, the California Invasion of Privacy Act, and competition law, and the common law.
