US
states probe Google’s Street View
States in the US led by
Connecticut have launched an
investigation into Google’s collection of Wi-Fi data, as
global probes into
Google Street View continue.
Google admits its Street
View cars ‘accidentally’
gathered data from individuals’ and businesses’
unsecured Wi-Fi networks in 30
countries.
It blames a rogue code in the
software for the error.
The search giant
collected the data as it logged
Wi-Fi hotspots, which it says was designed to improve location-based
services.
Google has since ceased to
collect the
information but never justified how the software came to be included in
the
Street View system, blaming a ‘single engineer’.
Getting
to the bottom
The US investigation
seeks to get to the bottom of
Google’s working practices including finding out why the
operation took place,
who inserted the code and why such private information was stored.
The state of Connecticut
is leading the
investigation, headed up by its attorney general Richard Blumenthal.
Blumenthal has demanded
copies of the company’s
internal procedures relating to Street View as well as details of how
and when
Google realised its cars had captured sensitive and private data. He
is also keen to find out why the firm was
recording the quality and signal strength of personal and business
wireless
networks in the first place.
30-state
investigation
So far thirty states
have signed up to the
investigation and Blumenthal expects more to join. He has branded the
accidental collection of data as a "deeply disturbing invasion of
personal
privacy."
Blumenthal champions
the consumers’ right to know why their personal information,
possibly including
emails and passwords, was collected by the search giant and why.
French data
protection agency CNIL is the latest to insist on seeing details of the
data
collected, with similar investigations under way in Australia, Canada,
Germany,
Italy, New Zealand and Spain.
