[governance] Google

[Riaz K Tayob]

  Google fined $25 000 for Street View data collection

*CHARLES ARTHUR * LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - Apr 17 2012 07:50


Google has been fined $25 000 for impeding a US investigation into its 
collection of wireless network data for its Street View project, which 
allows users to see street level images when they map a location.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) imposed the fine late on 
Friday, saying Google had collected personal information without 
permission and had then deliberately not cooperated with the FCC's 
investigation.

The company collected the data between 2007 and 2010, when a car driving 
around various locations in the US and, later, Europe, took photos of 
locations from public places -- but also collected information from 
unprotected wifi networks, including the location, name and in some 
cases the content -- including emails.

The FCC's investigation was left unresolved, according to the /New York 
Times/, because one key participant -- the Google engineer in charge of 
the project -- cited Fifth Amendment rights and declined to talk to it. 
The US Constitution's Fifth Amendment protects the right to silence of 
someone accused by the government of a crime.

"Google refused to identify any employees or produce any emails. The 
company could not supply compliant declarations without identifying 
employees it preferred not to identify," said an FCC order dated April 
13. "Misconduct of this nature threatens to compromise the commission's 
ability to effectively investigate possible violations of the 
Communications Act and the commission's rules."

*Error*
Google said at the time that the collection of data from the networks 
was an error and suggested it was down to an error by those in charge of 
the information collection. But according to the /New York Times/, the 
engineer says that others further up at Google must have known of what 
was happening.

The discovery of the data collection caused a storm when it was revealed 
in 2010. European data protection agencies reacted in different ways, 
with the Irish and UK commissioners suggesting Google should destroy the 
data without penalty, while in Germany they said they would need to 
examine it to determine whether any crime had been committed.

In the US, the FCC tried to make a similar determination, as did the 
consumer-focused Federal Trade Commission. The FTC closed its inquiry, 
while the FCC considered whether there had been a breach of the US 
Communications Act's clauses on wiretapping.

In the end it determined that it had not, because there was no precedent 
for applying it to wifi communications.

CONTINUES BELOW



Google said in a statement that it had turned over information to the 
agency and challenged the finding that it was uncooperative. "As the FCC 
notes in their report, we provided all the materials the regulators felt 
they needed to conclude their investigation and we were not found to 
have violated any laws," the company said in a statement. "We disagree 
with the FCC's characterisation of our cooperation in their 
investigation and will be filing a response."

Between May 2007 and May 2010, Google collected data from wifi networks 
throughout the US and across the world as part of its Street View 
project, which gives users of Google Map and Google Earth the ability to 
view street-level images of structures and land adjacent to roads and 
highways.

But Google also collected passwords, internet usage history and other 
sensitive personal data that was not needed for its location database 
project, the FCC said.

Google publicly acknowledged in May 2010 that it had collected the 
so-called "payload data". -- © Guardian News and Media 2012


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