Google facing £1 billion compensation claim for alleged unlawful data collection

Google is facing a mass legal action by a UK campaign group which alleges the tech giant unlawfully collected information from Apple's iPhone handsets, it is reported.

The group, led by former Which director Richard Lloyd, aims to land at least £1 billion in compensation for an estimated 5.4 million iPhone users, The Times reports.

The claim centres around allegations that between June 2011 and February 2012 Google placed cookies - small text files which give websites a way to track a user's preferences and deliver personalised advertisements - in iPhones, to fool the devices into releasing data from Safari, Apple's web browser.

It is reported to be the first such mass legal claim of its kind in the UK.

A spokesman for Google told the BBC: "This is not new - we have defended similar cases before. We don't believe it has any merit and we will contest it."

In August 2012 Google agreed to pay a civil penalty of $22.5 million (£15.1 million) to settle charges, brought by the United States Federal Trade Commission, that it misrepresented to users of the Safari browser that it would not place tracking cookies or serve targeted advertisements to those users.

The group lodging the claim in the UK - called Google You Owe Us - expects the case to start next year.