Google Details Its Wi-Fi Data-Collection Policies

German officials were “horrified” to find out last week that Google was using Street View cars to collect Wi-Fi data. Why it took them so much to find out a publicly known fact, they didn’t say, but they were clear that Google’s actions were out of bounds. The claims were a bit hypocritical, since plenty of other companies were doing the same thing and all Google was doing was collect public data. Now, the company has issued yet another blog post on the matter, hoping to make things as clear as possible.

“We collect the following information--photos, local WiFi network data and 3-D building imagery. This information enables us to build new services, and improve existing ones. Many other companies have been collecting data just like this for as long as, if not longer, than Google,” Peter Fleischer, global privacy counsel at Google, wrote.  

“The data which we collect is used to improve Google’s location based services, as well as services provided by the Google Geo Location API... [T]he only data which Google discloses to third parties through our Geo Location API is a triangulated geo code, which is an approximate location of the user’s device derived from all location data known about that point,” he added.

Google goes on to address many of the questions that may rise from its practices. It says that the data it collects from Wi-Fi networks, MAC addresses and SSID’s can’t be used to identify individual users. It also doesn’t make this data public. The data is employed internally and to offer location API services to third-parties, but it is not accessible directly by anyone outside Google.

The company also says that it believes the data it is collecting is completely legal, since it is publicly available and other companies have been doing it for years without complaints from authorities. Google has also sent out a four-page report detailing how its Wi-Fi data collection technology works to several national data-protection agencies.