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Google to tighten privacy policies after Wi-Fi fiasco – Computerworld

October 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Under fire for months over its capture of people’s Wi-Fi traffic data, Google has announced several steps aimed at preventing similar missteps in the future.

At the same time, Google is acknowledging that its inadvertent Wi-Fi snooping collected not only data fragments but entire e-mail messages, website addresses and passwords.

Google has been in hot water with privacy advocates, government agencies and concerned individuals since its disclosure in May that, since 2007, its Street View cars, in addition to taking photos for its Maps product, had also collected Wi-Fi transmission data from unencrypted networks.

Government agencies and legislators in the U.S. and abroad are investigating the issue, and a number of users have filed privacy-breach lawsuits against the company.

Google had intended the Street View cars to only grab and store open Wi-Fi networks’ names (SSIDs) and their unique router numbers (MAC addresses) for use in Google location-based services.

Due to a software glitch, the Google cars intercepted and stored Web traffic data, which initially the company had said was highly fragmented, but that it now is admitting includes the full text of e-mail messages and passwords.

via Google to tighten privacy policies after Wi-Fi fiasco – Computerworld.

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244,000 Germans Opt Out of Google Mapping Service – NYTimes.com

October 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Google on Thursday said 244,000 people in Germany had asked the company to remove images of their houses and apartments from its Street View maps, but that the requests would not derail its plans to activate the service this year.

The figure was in line with what German data protection officials had previously estimated. The officials predicted that several hundred thousand people would opt out.

In a blog posting on its Web site, Google said 2.9 percent of the 8.5 million households in Germany’s 20 largest cities had opted out of the service.

via 244,000 Germans Opt Out of Google Mapping Service – NYTimes.com.

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Google ditches all Street View Wi-Fi scanning | Privacy Inc. – CNET News

October 19, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Google has no plans to resume using its Street View cars to collect information about the location of Wi-Fi networks, a practice that led to a flurry of privacy probes after the company said it unintentionally captured fragments of unencrypted data.

The disclosure appeared in a report on Street View released today by Canadian privacy commissioner Jennifer Stoddart, who said that “collection is discontinued and Google has no plans to resume it.” Assembling an extensive list of the location of Wi-Fi access points can aid in geolocation, especially in areas where connections to cell towers are unreliable.

Instead, Stoddart said that, based on her conversations with headquarters in Mountain View, Ca., “Google intends to obtain the information needed to populate its location-based services database” from “users’ handsets.”

via Google ditches all Street View Wi-Fi scanning | Privacy Inc. – CNET News.

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Google ditches all Street View Wi-Fi scanning | Privacy Inc. – CNET News

October 19, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Google has no plans to resume using its Street View cars to collect information about the location of Wi-Fi networks, a practice that led to a flurry of privacy probes after the company said it unintentionally captured fragments of unencrypted data.

The disclosure appeared in a report on Street View released today by Canadian privacy commissioner Jennifer Stoddart, who said that “collection is discontinued and Google has no plans to resume it.” Assembling an extensive list of the location of Wi-Fi access points can aid in geolocation, especially in areas where connections to cell towers are unreliable.

Instead, Stoddart said that, based on her conversations with headquarters in Mountain View, Ca., “Google intends to obtain the information needed to populate its location-based services database” from “users’ handsets.”

via Google ditches all Street View Wi-Fi scanning | Privacy Inc. – CNET News.

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Germans flood Google with Street View opt-out requests – Computerworld

September 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Google has received an increased number of requests from Germans who want to omit their properties from its Street View imagery program.

The German publication Der Spiegel reported on Saturday that the requests number several hundred thousand, but Google is not releasing an official figure.

“As expected, due to the wide media coverage and our own information campaign the number of letters we have received has increased in recent weeks,” according to a company statement. “Our first priority is to verify and process all the genuine applications. At this stage it is therefore not possible to give an accurate number of opt-outs.”

In August Google launched a special program for Germans that allowed people in certain cities to request that their properties be blocked from appearing on Street View, due to go live in 20 cities later this year. People can use an online tool or write an e-mail or letter to make the request. Google extended the program from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15.

via Germans flood Google with Street View opt-out requests – Computerworld.

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Germany Seeks Privacy Code For Online Mapping – Technology News – redOrbit

September 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The government of Germany has called on Google Inc. and other providers of online navigation services to create a set of voluntary data protection guidelines for services such as Google’s “Street View” by the end of the year.

Failure to do so would result in the imposition of new market regulations to protect consumers, said Germany’s Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere on Monday.

De Maizier’s comments came after a five-hour meeting with Internet executives, Germany’s federal justice, consumer protection ministers and various data protection authorities.

“We need a charter guarding private geographical data and we need it drafted… by December 7,” the AFP quoted de Maiziere as saying.

“A charter could, and I mean could, make regulation superfluous,” he told reporters during a press conference.

Berlin had called the meeting following public outrage over Google’s plan to display images from 20 German cities as part of its Street View online mapping service.

via Germany Seeks Privacy Code For Online Mapping – Technology News – redOrbit.

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Germany debating privacy with Google and peers | Reuters

September 20, 2010 By Leave a Comment

German officials met internet firms on Monday to try to reconcile Germany’s strict data protection rules with programs like Google’s “Street View” mapping system, as calls for regulation intensify.

Consumer Protection Minister Ilse Aigner, who has clashed with social networking site Facebook over its handling of user data, told a newspaper she expected tougher legislation to rein in some ambitions of Google, the world’s No. 1 search engine.

“We must legally regulate the collection and use of geographic image data,” she told Tagesspiegel daily, adding that she felt companies could not be left to regulate themselves.

That echoed the view of hundreds of thousands of Germans who have requested that their homes be kept out of Google’s service, which uses fleets of cars equipped with cameras to take panoramic pictures of cities for its online atlas.

The German government has been critical of Street View and said it will scrutinize Google’s promise to respect privacy requests by letting people stay out of the project. Germans have until October 15 to apply for an opt-out.

via Germany debating privacy with Google and peers | Reuters.

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After Google incident, Wi-Fi data collection goes on – Computerworld

September 8, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Four months ago, amidst a backlash from government regulators and privacy advocates, Google stopped collecting Wi-Fi data with its Street View cars. But that doesn’t mean Google has stopped collecting wireless data altogether, and neither have other companies such as Apple.

Instead of sending out cars to sniff out wireless networks, Google is now crowdsourcing the operation, with users of its Android phones and location-aware mobile applications doing the reconnaissance work for it. In the past few months, Apple has quietly started building a similar database, leveraging its large base of users to log basic Wi-Fi data.

There are others: A Boston company, Skyhook Wireless, has been logging wireless access points for years, as has its competitor, Navizon of Miami Beach, Florida.

It’s a trend that’s been spurred by the intense interest in applications such as FourSquare and Facebook Places. As it becomes increasingly important for programs that run on your phone to know exactly where you are — to be location-aware in industry parlance — having a way of figuring out exactly where you are becomes critical. But the companies collecting this data haven’t come under much scrutiny, many users do not understand how the data is being collected or why, and security experts are just now starting to discover some of the ways that this information could be misused.

via After Google incident, Wi-Fi data collection goes on – Computerworld.

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Google Removes WiFi Gear from Street View Cars – Search Engines from eWeek

July 10, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Google July 8 said it has officially removed all hardware and software used to corral WiFi data in its Street View cars, which have resumed their tours of Sweden, Ireland, Norway and South Africa.

Google grounded its entire fleet of Street View cars—which collect real-life footage of city streets in countries all over the world—in May when it discovered the vehicles had grabbed 600 gigabytes of e-mail and other data fragments from unsecured wireless networks.

via Google Removes WiFi Gear from Street View Cars – Search Engines from eWeek.

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Privacy laws must move with the times | Tom McNally | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

July 6, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Do you remember how you did your shopping back in 1998? How you carried out your banking, renewed your driving licence, planned and booked your holidays?

Chances are you visited the shops in person, telephoned the bank, wrote to the DVLA, and relied on your high street travel agent to organise your summer getaway.

But in 2010, these are tasks that a growing number of us carry out online, along with a whole host of other transactions which would have seemed unthinkable a decade ago.

The digital revolution has provided us with manifold advantages and improvements to our lives. But is has also seen an enormous transfer of private, individual data to businesses and public sector bodies, as each of us has handed over information on our finances, employment records, and consumer preferences to countless organisations on an almost daily basis.

via Privacy laws must move with the times | Tom McNally | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

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