Google Admits it Still Has WiFi Data from Street View Scandal Two Years Ago - The UpStream

Google Admits it Still Has WiFi Data from Street View Scandal Two Years Ago

posted Sunday Jul 29, 2012 by Nicholas DiMeo

Google Admits it Still Has WiFi Data from Street View Scandal Two Years Ago

Remember the whole Google Street View issue of May 2010? You know, the one where Google was tapping into your WiFi and collecting any and all information it could, only to have to pay $25,000 for the damages they caused? Well, if you thought the ridiculously low fine for Google was enough, think again. The Google anti-trust drama continues to get even more interesting.

It took everything for Google to admit they were collecting WiFi information from over 30 countries back in 2010, including England. Britain's Information Commissioner's Office then sent out a request ordering Google to delete all information they had on file aside from the actual Street View images they were supposed to be collecting. News has surfaced this week that Google did not really delete the information, even though the company signed an agreement in November 2010 saying that they would.

What happens now and did Google fess up to the new allegations? We talk about it after the break.

The ICO said,

The ICO is clear that this information should never have been collected in the first place and the company's failure to secure its deletion as promised is a cause for concern.

Google has quickly responded to the matter and claims that while recently searching through the Street View hard drives, it ran across some data that was not actually deleted per the agreement. Peter Fleischer, Google's counsel for global privacy, said,

Google has recently confirmed that it still has in its possession a small portion of... data collected by our Street View vehicles in the UK. Google apologizes for the error.

Google has also stated that they are currently reaching out to all over authorities in the affected countries and are trying to rectify the issue as quick as possible. It would appear just pressing the "delete" key would probably fix the issue, but we all know that's not Google's style. The ICO also demanded that Google hand over all of the undeleted information so that their forensics team can review the data before deciding on what to do about Google's infraction. For all of our sake, we hope it's not another $25,000 fine. Add a couple of zeros to that and we'll talk about a fair resolution to this matter.

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