Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) senior fellow Johnny Ryan is suing the tech giant Oracle for tracking and monitoring people.
The lawsuit was filed in California and is jointly led by two U.S. privacy advocates, Michael Katz-Lacabe and Maryland associate professor Dr Jennifer Golbeck.
“Oracle claims to have amassed detailed dossiers on five billion people and generates $42.4bn (€42.4bn) in annual revenue. Oracle’s dossiers about people include names, home addresses, emails, purchases online and in the real world, physical movements in the real world, income, interests and political views, and a detailed account of online activity. Oracle also coordinates a global trade in dossiers about people through the Oracle Data Marketplace,” the ICCL said in a statement.
Privacy advocates continue to criticize large technology platforms for using users’ data without their consent. Users of technology products also sound the alarm about how their data is collected and used for various activities, including targeted advertising.
“Oracle 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,” Dr Ryan said.
However, the exploitation of user data will not end any time soon, as efforts to discourage big tech organization continue to face widespread challenges.