Google Fined For Street View Privacy Breach

PARIS — Google received its first ever fine for improperly gathering and storing data for its Street View application on Monday when it was penalized by France's privacy watchdog.

The euro100,000 ($141,300) penalty – the largest ever by French body CNIL – sanctions Google for collecting personal data from Wi-Fi networks – including e-mails, web browsing histories and online banking details – from 2007 to 2010 through its roaming camera-mounted cars and bicycles.

The fine is the first against Google over the data-gathering, which more than 30 countries have complained about. At least two other European countries are considering fines, while some others have ruled against penalizing Google.

Google Inc. has apologized and says it will delete the data.

"As we have said before, we are profoundly sorry for having mistakenly collected payload data from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks," Google's Global Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer said in an e-mailed statement. "As soon as we realized what had happened, we stopped collecting all Wi-Fi data from our Street View cars and immediately informed the authorities."

Google has two months to appeal the fine. It hasn't yet decided whether it will, a company spokesman said.

The head of CNIL criticized Google for a lack of transparency and cooperation with its investigation, which it launched in 2009.

"They were not always willing to cooperate with us, they didn't give us all the information we asked for, like the source code of all devices in the Google cars," said Yann Padova, CNIL's executive director. "They were not always very transparent."

The incidents, which some critics have derisively labeled as "Wi-Spy," were caused by "an engineer's careless error as well as a lack of controls to ensure that necessary procedures to protect privacy were followed," Canada Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart concluded in a report last October.

Several other countries have skewered Google for scooping up 600 gigabytes of data – equivalent to about six floors of an academic library – from Wi-Fi systems for more than two years before detecting a problem in response from to an inquiry from regulators in Germany.

Google initially said it had only captured fragments of people's online activities, but Canada's investigation determined that entire e-mails, passwords and website addresses had been obtained and stored.

Comments

[Max Shaw]

05:23 PM on 03/22/2011

Times like this Im glad I dont have a smarty-phone.

[sLegal]

07:35 AM on 03/22/2011

People if you dont need to use a laptop around the house, ditch the wireless and just go wired. It's better performing, faster, easier to setup, and a lot more secure than wireless. Sure its not as "cool" but like I said before - security.

[Luke McIntosh]

07:23 AM on 03/22/2011

I've worked in ICT for over 10 years and built public wi-fi systems. You can't simply connect to a wi-fi network and get data without specific intent to find it. Basically, there's no way for the data to have been gathered unless someone was specifically trying to do it.

Having said that, if Google immediately rectified the situations once it was discovered and deleted the data, than the person responsible (the engineer) should be on trial and not Google. I don't disagree that Google has a certain responsibility in this, but that engineer needs to be held accountable. You can't "accidentally" gather data like that. It's impossible to do without intent.

Oh, and Google is not going to give up all their source code from the cars. That's a cock-n-bull excuse from the French authorities. They have no right to ask for all of it; only for the code that was pertinent in gathering the data illegally.

[littlemike]

06:45 PM on 03/22/2011

I agree the request for all the source code sounds suspicious and I'd fight that vigorously. However, Google (like any company) is responsible for the actions of its employees unless they were specifically disobeying company policy.

[kerryonworld]

06:42 AM on 03/22/2011

Last year I wrote a piece on the findings of a study made by an ethical hacker group. They found that in six UK cities, 50% of Wifi homes can be hacked.

http://www.kerryonworld.com/computers/half-of-wifi-homes-can-be-hacked-study-finds

Heck, even 25% of the wireless networks weren't even password enabled!

[ghostrider57]

01:06 PM on 03/22/2011

So that is an open invitation for big business and government organizations to monitor their traffic and build cases on what they find?

Most free societies have a 6th Amendment or something similar to protect their citizens.

[eco sys]

06:35 AM on 03/22/2011

i am scared of companies like google, world domination ideals

[drularter]

04:37 AM on 03/22/2011

Yet another "hick-up" from Google. It is sad to me that such a promising company keeps making such silly mistakes. I mean, you would think for a company that is prided on it's ability to catalog information and make it easily searchable, they would know about the laws they are breaking and the patents they infringe upon. Sad.

[Chanrazig]

01:33 AM on 03/22/2011

Google needs to revisit their " do no evil" theme....too bad they've strayed so far.

[ghostrider57]

01:08 PM on 03/22/2011

I think they have been sub-contracted by the NSA...... :-D

[loki]

01:32 AM on 03/22/2011

http://www.google-watch.org/bigbro.html

just some food for thought.

read it, make your own decision

[loki]

01:00 AM on 03/22/2011

"As soon as we realized what had happened, we stopped collecting all Wi-Fi data from our Street View cars and immediately informed the authorities."

which time?

[loki]

12:57 AM on 03/22/2011

Now Ive been doing a little research, via google. Many US states and other countries have been complaining and filing law suits about this very subject since 2007 when it was first discovered to be going on. In each case google responds with the same lame excuse. Its a code error we did not know about, and we promise to fix it.

is it just me, but once someone points it out to you, say, 4 years ago, doesnt the " oops we didnt know about it" excuse kind of become useless?

To me this stinks that Google is either part of , or working for/with something much bigger. maybe Gov agency? Private ? who knows.. But its really strange how in each law suit filed in the USA, its made public when the suit if filed by the states Attorney General, but then nothing. That takes some major clout to do.

[Amalek]

12:48 AM on 03/22/2011

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men! Google knows!.

[loki]

12:47 AM on 03/22/2011

http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/2010/06/missouri_ag_wants_google_to_reveal_data_obtained_from_street_view.php


well lookie here. Its not just in Europe that they steal your personal wi fi info. Its in the US of A too. Not so funny not is it people. What does Google have on you? On me? and who are they really collecting it for? And why??

[loki]

12:44 AM on 03/22/2011

just why would google be capturing personal data using wifi with its street view camera car anyway? I thought they just took pictures, not spied on all the wifi signals in the area of the car?
Something really stinks about this. Photos in public places is one thing, but collecting info over WiFi is another... this smells like Google is not really a corporation, but more an overlord.


"Google for collecting personal data from Wi-Fi networks – including e-mails, web browsing histories and online banking details – from 2007 to 2010 through its roaming camera-mounted cars and bicycles."

[Amalek]

12:49 AM on 03/22/2011

Google is based on the premise of collecting everything, and then finding a way to use it.  They jumped the shark on this.

[loki]

12:35 AM on 03/22/2011

Its not fair. Google gives out the street view schedule , dates and times and routes for its street view camera cars online, but wont for the USA. I dont think that is right.

[lightist]

12:28 AM on 03/22/2011

A mere pittance for what Google got for it. Besides, the US govt. pays those fines for them.

[loki]

12:39 AM on 03/22/2011

I doubt anyone pays the fines. Fines on corporations are only verbally made and never paid. Its to make the public feel like their gov looks out for them. Can you name one time you saw any legitimate documentation that proved any corporation actually paid any fines given to them over the last 20 years? You can for past fines back until the Reagan era. But after that its almost impossible to find any documentation proving a large corporation actually paid a fine. Many for smaller corporations and businesses, but not the biggest and the richest. Its all PR scams in my opinion. And dont even try to find out what happens to the few fines that the smaller businesses pay. There is nothing on that. It just evaporates or something. But since not many people ever question this, the gov just dont care.