14 DAY TRIAL // Google’s collecting of personal data from open Wi-Fi networks with its Street View cars continues to spell trouble for the company. There are very few details on what and how it happened and this is a reason of concern for authorities in the countries involved. The US has been slow to move, but it looks like things are picking up there as well.
Reports say that attorneys general from over 30 US states have discussed whether to join forces in investigating and potentially pursuing charges over the matter. There have been a couple of lawsuits filed by individuals in the US against Google over the privacy breach, but authorities have been proceeding with caution, so far.
Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut’s attorney general, was the one that organized the conference call between the ones in similar positions from other US states. He has also opened an investigation of the issue in his state.
The conference call was just to establish what path, if any, to pursue and if a joint investigation made sense. Mr. Blumenthal said that there were plenty of unanswered questions and each response from Google prompted even more. The attorney general explained there was too little information to decide whether to press charges or not and that this was a problem.
For its part, Google is pretty much in the dark as well. It has provided an explanation of how the breach happened, Google says it used software designed initially for another purpose and that it didn’t realize the mistake until a couple of months ago.
But once it did realize that it had been collecting payload data from wireless networks, it took steps to minimize the damage. Google says only two persons actually viewed the collected data, the engineer that first designed the software and a security engineer who was tasked with discovering whether the setup really did gather and store payload data.
As such, Google itself has very little knowledge of what data it has actually gathered and stored. However, the data collected from Ireland, Denmark and Austria has already been destroyed at the request of authorities in those countries.
Previous coverage of the Google Wi-Fi Data Collection blunder: - German Officials ‘Horrified’ by Google Street View WiFi Snooping - Google Details Its Wi-Fi Data-Collection Policies - Google Admits to Collecting Personal Wi-Fi Data - Google’s Personal Wi-Fi Data Debacle Unravels - Google Stops Deleting Personal Wi-Fi Data It Collected - Google Refuses to Hand Over Wi-Fi Data to Regulators - Media Scaremongering in the Google Wi-Fi Blunder - Google to Hand Over Wi-Fi Data to European Regulators - Google Wi-Fi Audit Proves Criminal Intent, Says Privacy Group