Advance Australian investigation Fair

Following in the footsteps of the national Data Protection Authorities in Germany, France, Czech Republic, and Italy, Australia has announced that there shall be a formal investigation into Google's electronic snooping via their Street View cars.

Australia’s communications minister, Stephen Conroy, said

Google was responsible for the single greatest breach in the history of privacy.

Equally, American Congressmen are pushing for retention of the data Google has stolen in the USA until a proper investigation has taken place. As we said in our joint statement recently, the same should be done here in the UK. If they destroy the evidence of what they've done, how can it properly assist in policing e-snooping in the future?

The refusal of the UK's Information Commissioner to investigate Google here becomes ever-more difficult to justify. People in this country face the prospect of never knowing what Google snatched from their transmitted data, whilst those abroad have full investigations. How can that be right?

By Alex Deane

Comments

[Redacted]

Google and Conroy were already not best mates, due to the Australian pornwall.

Agree entirely about our ICO, which just looks complacent and feeble in comparison to efforts in other countries. Very poor show indeed chaps, no teeth, no cojones.

some related links:

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9177634/Google_wants_to_patent_technology_used_to_snoop_Wi_Fi_networks

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/7802257/Google-WiFi-privacy-row-Eric-Schmidt-admits-search-engine-screwed-up.html

which ends:

"The company will not, however, face any action in the UK because the Information Commissioner is satisfied with the company's promise to delete the data "as soon as reasonably possible”.

The ICO has ordered Google to destroy all of the personal data."

[GC]

Oh come on. Seriously.

What are google _really_ going to have been able to catch in a 30 second drive by of your house.

Bugger all. A photo and the MAC of your router.

Big deal. Your MAC won't even make it past your ISPs routing equipment.

Who cares.

If you're dumb enough to have your wireless equipment configure unencrypted (most, if not all, major ISPs preconfigure all wireless kit with encryption) then you _could_ have gotten some URLs snatched out of the air.

But there's a big difference between "accidentally" capturing a few MAC addresses, and accidentally aquiring, parsing and storing the HTTP transaction skipping over the airwaves as you drive past.

I don't care. I only read this because it was on my RSS feeds.

Rant over, going to bed.

[Redacted]

@GC: "If you're dumb enough to have your wireless equipment configure unencrypted...

I've written on this attitude on earlier threads on this subject. I don't accept it at all.

If someone steals your wallet, it is still theft regardless of the value of what's in it.

Google's main purpose in gathering wifi data is for use by the android mobile phone OS, for improved geolocation. So whether the mac address gets past your ISP is not relevant.

Just because you may have an understanding of how networking works it doesn't give you any right to exploit people who maybe do not. Any more than it is right to rob a simpleton who is too trusting. All the wifi equipment I've ever installed was insecure by default, out of the box.

All sorts of crimes against property or person are easy to commit, but that does not mean that people consent to them by failing to go about in a suit of armour or whatever.

Who cares? I do, also the US Federal trade commision, and the goverments of Germany, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Spain, Australia and Italy, not to mention those who have launched multiple civil lawsuits in the US.