14 DAY TRIAL // Several months after Google revealed that it had been collecting payload WiFi network data with its Street View cars, the matter is still not resolved in many places. Still, a number of government and law enforcement agencies in several countries have concluded their investigations to date. The latest to do so is the Australian Federal Police, which will drop the matter despite the investigation not being completed.
The authorities justified their move saying that, while Google may have indeed broken the law, most signs indicate that it did so inadvertently and proving the contrary would be difficult if not impossible.
As such, the police authorities are dropping the investigation and will not impose any sanctions on Google or push the matter forward.
There are some things to take away from the conclusion of the Australian Federal Police yet, interestingly, its findings are on par with other agencies around the world uncovered.
The police says that Google is very likely to have broken the local privacy laws. However, the breach, by all accounts, has been inadvertent, as Google itself has claimed all along. In many countries, privacy breaches must be done with intent or cause measurable harm for the companies to be prosecutable.
What's more, the authorities say, gathering evidence to prove any wrong doing is problematic. There is no way to know for sure what happened even if you have access to the code that ran on the Street View cars' hardware. First, you must trust that Google is providing you with the real code and second, there is no way to determine what the company did with the data it gathered, if anything.
The Australian Privacy Commissioner had ended its investigation a few months back, reaching pretty much the same conclusion: Google may have broken the law, but malicious intent can't be proven. [via Search Engine Land]