Google in Potential Showdown Over Wi-Fi Data Debacle; 'No Harm, No Foul,' Says CEO
Google is the subject of apparently conflicting global demands in a potential showdown over the giant Internet company’s admitted inadvertent collection of some 600 gigabytes of unsecured Wi-Fi data in recent years. Because of a programming error, the data was accidentally collected from millions of homes and businesses by vehicles traveling the world for its Street View global online map project, Google announced late Friday.
German authorities are now demanding that Google turn over a hard drive that can be examined to confirm the parameters of its violation of European privacy law, reports the New York Times. Meanwhile, authorities in other countries are considering or pursuing their own investigations, according to media outlets. Some, including the United Kingdom, are demanding that Google destroy individual data it has collected, eliciting outrage from consumer advocates.
“Up until now, all we have to go on at this point is what Google has told us that they have collected. But until we can inspect one of the hard drives ourselves, we will not know to what extent what kinds of data have actually been stored,” regulator Johannes Caspar, who is leading Germany’s discussions with Google, tells the Times. Caspar is the data protection supervisor for the city-state of Hamburg, where Google’s German headquarters is located. He says the company has been given until May 26 to comply.
The U.K.’s Information Commissioner’s Office has ordered Google to destroy the data but says it doesn’t intend to take action against the company, a response that is drawing a furious reaction from consumer privacy advocates, according to the Guardian:
“Google is going to be the target of a criminal prosecution somewhere in the world for this. But if the evidence is destroyed, there’s no way to examine whether a crime has been committed,” Simon Davies of Privacy International tells the British newspaper. “The ICO has taken at face value what Google has said, even though it hasn’t inspected the data to see whether an offense has been committed. And now it can’t.”
Regulators in Canada and the United States are considering what to do next, reports the Technology Live blog of USA Today.
Here in the U.S., Consumer Watchdog has asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the extent of Google’s intrusion, reports IDG News Service.
“Google has demonstrated a history of pushing the envelope and then apologizing when its overreach is discovered,” the group contended in a press release yesterday. “Given its recent record of privacy abuses, there is absolutely no reason to trust anything the Internet giant claims about its data collection policies.”
Google CEO Eric Schmidt said at a U.K. conference today that his company shouldn’t be prosecuted for an inadvertent mistake that has essentially caused no harm except to Google’s reputation, reports the London Times.
“No harm, no foul,” he said, speaking from the Google Zeitgeist conference. “A relatively small of data was collected and this was not authorized. We stopped driving immediately. There appears to be no use of data. It’s sitting on a hard drive.”
Google says it will destroy the Wi-Fi data as soon as it can obtain regulators’ approval to do so.
Although Google didn’t intend to collect personal data such as passwords and information about users’ Web-surfing habits, it did intend to obtain network names and serial numbers of Wi-Fi hardware, thus pinpointing their geographic location, writes the Financial Times (reg. req.).
Additional coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Google Admits Its Street View Cars Collected Personal Wi-Fi Data”
CNET News: “U.K. officials ask Google to delete Wi-Fi data”
Technology (Los Angeles Times): “Google adds business information to Street View”
The Register: “Google’s WiFi snoop - who knew and who didn’t?”
Autotopia (Wired): “Google Street View Trike Captures the Roads Less Driven”
