Google sues Indian ex-employee for stealing, leaking pixel secrets

Tech giant Google has filed a lawsuit against one of its former engineers, Harshit Roy, accusing him of stealing trade secrets related to its chip designs and sharing them publicly on the internet.

The lawsuit, filed in a Texas federal court, alleges that Roy -- who worked at Google from 2020 to 2024 as an engineer -- "touted his dominion" over the secrets in social media posts on X and LinkedIn, tagging competitors and making threatening statements to the company.

"After an investigation, we found that this former employee stole numerous documents, and we're pursuing legal action against them for the repeated and unauthorised disclosure of confidential company information," said Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda. "This behaviour is something we will simply not tolerate."

According to the complaint, Roy began working for Google in 2020 to develop computer chips used in Google Pixel devices like smartphones.

However, he resigned in February 2024 and moved from Bangalore, India to the United States in August to attend a doctorate programme at the University of Texas at Austin.

Shortly after, Roy started sharing confidential Google information on his X account. His posts included photos of internal documents with details about Pixel processing chips. He in his post also wrote "subversive text" directed at the company, such as "don't expect me to adhere to any confidentiality agreement", reported Reuters.

The lawsuit claims that Roy ignored Google's takedown requests and has posted additional trade secrets to X and LinkedIn since October.

Google alleged that Roy tagged competitors Apple and Qualcomm in some of the posts, "presumably to maximise the potential harm of his disclosure", reported Reuters.

Google is seeking an unspecified amount of monetary damages and court orders blocking Roy from using or sharing its secrets.