Google has been fined $141,300 by France’s privacy watchdog, CNIL.
Google has been charged with collecting email, web browsing histories, and online banking details from Wi-Fi networks from 2007 to 2010 via Google’s Street View camera-mounted cars and bikes.
This is the first fine, after 30+ countries have complained about Google’s data troll.
Google’s Global Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer addressed the issue:
As we have said before, we are profoundly sorry for having mistakenly collected payload data from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks, as soon as we realized what had happened, we stopped collecting all Wi-Fi data from our Street View cars and immediately informed the authorities.
Seriously? Since when did Google, or anyone else, become responsible for the security of other people’s Wi-Fi networks? Had those networks had appropriate security, Google would have collected nothing.
CNIL had their side to the story:
They [Google] were not always willing to cooperate with us, they didn’t give us all the information we asked for, like the source code of all devices in the Google cars. They were not always very transparent.
Google was wise to keep their fingers on their source code. If the Government was so concerned about their citizen’s privacy, why not simply insure the deletion? What interest did CNIL have in the data?
Critics have labeled the controversy as “Wi-Spy” and Canada Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart concluded in a report last October:
An engineer’s careless error as well as a lack of controls to ensure that necessary procedures to protect privacy were followed.
Will Canadian’s find Ms. Stoddart at their front door scolding them for carelessly allowing their smartphone to use their neighbor’s unsecured Wi-Fi signal?
Google should not be held responsible for every Wi-Fi network in the world, although, a little cultural forethought would have saved them from this backlash.
The European culture is very community minded; the whole is greater than the one. Whereas the American culture is very independently minded; the individual is greater than the whole.
Google assumed the cultural perspective of personal responsibility. They took care of their business; everyone should look after their own. European Governments look at it differently. They see Google in contempt because Google didn’t keep the communities interest above their own.
[via CNBC]
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