Google Faces Further Scrutiny Over ‘WiSpy’

A US federal judge has ordered Google to hand over copies of the Wi-Fi data it accidentally captured while taking pictures for its Street View mapping service. The encrypted data will be kept under seal as backup, in case it is ruled as admissible evidence in lawsuits filed against the search giant.

Although Google claims that it has never used any of the personal data in its products, several US states are demanding millions in damages over the company’s actions, claiming that it violated federal and local privacy laws.

Data protection authorities in Germany, France and Spain have also asked Google to surrender the data – which could apparently contain users’ private emails, passwords and web browsing activity.

Handing over data creates further privacy concerns

However, some data protection authorities and privacy campaigners fear that handing over the hard drives which contain the data could harm privacy further, according to the Financial Times. Google also claims that external lawyers have advised the company not to hand over the data, but hopes to reach a compromise with European data protection authorities over the matter this week.

Last week, Google denied regulators in Germany and Hong Kong access to the data. “We are continuing to discuss the appropriate legal and logistical process for making the data available. We hope, given more time, to be able to resolve this difficult issue,” A Google spokesperson told eWEEK on 27 May.

Google has now suspended the use of Street View cars across the world and apologised for “mistakenly” gathering fragments of personal data. However, it argues that the information it collected was publicly available, as the Wi-Fi networks were unsecured and often extended beyond the barriers of the property.

UK Wi-Fi networks mapped

Meanwhile, in the UK, it has been discovered that every wireless network in Britain has been mapped and entered into a Google database, to provide mobile users with context-relevant information, such as restaurants, cinemas and shops in the locality. A report in the Telegraph on Sunday revealed that the information was collected by radio aerials on Google Street View cars, which only this year expanded its service to cover 96 percent of all UK roads and thoroughfares.

“We think it will historically be viewed as a horrendous breach of law and something which a better regulator with a better understanding of the issues and the technology would never have allowed to happen,” a spokesman for Privacy International told the paper.

“The idea that it can log everyone’s Wi-Fi details because it is all ‘public’ is a bogus argument. It is bogus because of the question of scale and the question of integration with other information, which would amount to a huge breach of our privacy,” he added.

New security measures

On 21 May, Google began adding SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption for its search engine, in direct response to the Wi-Fi data-collecting scandal. SSL encryption is a sturdy security protocol used by banking and e-commerce sites, which protects information as it passes between individuals’ computers and Internet services. This offers a “significant privacy advantage over systems that only encrypt log-in pages and credit card information,” according to Google Software Engineer Evan Roseman.

SSL may go some way to appease countries affected by Google’s Wi-Fi gaffe, known in the media by privacy watchdogs as WiSpy, but international regulators worldwide are still coming down hard on the company for the misstep, lending muscle to arguments that Google should be more rigorously controlled.