UK Supreme Court to Announce Ruling on 'Significant' Lloyd v Google Case Over User Privacy Breach

On Wednesday, the UK Supreme Court is due to announce its judgment on a billion-pound legal action against Google over claims the company secretly tracked iPhone users' internet activity.

The lawsuit was earlier lodged by Richard Lloyd, former executive director of the technology magazine Which?.

He claims that Google "illegally misused the data of millions of iPhone users" via the "clandestine tracking and collation" of information about internet usage on iPhones' Safari browser, known as the "Safari workaround".

Lloyd, who is supported by the campaign group Google You Owe Us, launched his "representative action" against the US tech giant on behalf of about 4.4 million people in England and Wales.

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The former Which? director hopes to win between £1 billion ($1.35 billion) and £3 billion ($4.06 billion) in compensation for alleged breaches of the Data Protection Act 2018 that "controls how your personal information is used by organisations, businesses, or the government".

British media outlets reported earlier on Wednesday that the Supreme Court ruling may prod Google to pay all iPhone users in the UK £750 ($1,000) in compensation for the company's purported secret tracking.

The UK Supreme Court initially refused to hear the claim first brought by Lloyd in 2018, but the Court of Appeal overturned a decision in October 2019.

In April 2021, the Court of Appeal's judgment was challenged by Google and in the coming hours, a panel of five Supreme Court justices is slated to give their ruling on the matter.

The tech giant rejects allegations that it covertly installed an advertising tracking cookie on the Safari web browser used on iPhones, Macs, or iPads between 2011 and 2012, arguing that the default privacy settings of the browser prevent the company from doing so.

Jamie Curle, a partner at the law firm DLA Piper, has meanwhile said in an interview with Sky News that the Supreme Court's upcoming judgment would be "one of the most eagerly awaited decisions of recent years", something that he claimed would have "a significant impact on the volume and nature of litigation in the data privacy arena".

He spoke as Sky News pointed to "the real importance" of the Supreme Court's judgment, which may affect case law in the UK.

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The verdict is expected to pave the way for representative actions in the country pertaining to other data protection cases, which will help consumer rights activists lodge claims against companies violating privacy laws.