Google rapped over security violations

Google’s controversial project ‘Street View’ has been the source of a number of controversial legal battles since its launch. This week, the project has been called to question for allegations of spying, through the collection of potentially sensitive materials.

Consumer Watchdog, a US advocacy programme has made claims that Google has illegally collated sensitive data relating to Congress members working on issues of national security. Google has stepped up and confirmed that an amount of data was collected in error, as a result of filming areas for the Street View facility. The data was collated over a number of unprotected wifi networks.

The ‘Street View’ row first came to light in 2006, when Google was asked to share the material they had collected with authorities in Germany. Following this, industry experts have likened Google’s method of collecting information to spying, suggesting that their way of getting data is ‘scandalous’. The ‘Street View’ service sends cars out to take photos of areas to map, but it transpires that they also tapped in to unsecured networks along the routes. Data collated included photographs, websites being viewed by people on networks, emails and text.

A number of criminals use this same way of getting information, tapping unsecured wifi networks in order to obtain financial information from people browsing online. The president of the Computer Industry and Communications Industry Association has issued a response to the new findings about Google: “What Consumer Watchdog did was not a useful contribution to what could and should be a broader online privacy debate. They detected unsecured wifi networks that anyone, including neighbours, can pick up. It proves nothing about what, if anything, a person or company like Google might have done to intercept and record data.”

Google maintain that their activities do not constitute law breaking, and while they admit that the events took place, they state that what they did to obtain data was not illegal.

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