Google Faces US, German Probes over WiFi Data Collection
Street View cars had been collecting more data than the company realized
Authorities in both Germany and the US are expected to begin inquiries into Google's "accidental" collection of WiFi payload data by its Street View cars. German commissioner for data protection Peter Schaar has asked for a detailed probe of the incident while consumer group Consumer Watchdog has demanded that the US Federal Trade Commission look into Google's activities on this side of the pond.
The furor erupted after Google admitted on Friday that its Street View cars had been collecting more data than the company realized. The cars are supposed to only take photos of the street and collect basic WiFi information, such as the SSIDs and MAC addresses of WiFi routers.
The WiFi data was to be used in Google's location-based services, and Google argued last month that it only collected the same data that was publicly available to anyone walking down the street with a WiFi device. Google insisted that it did not collect any kind of IP or packet data in the course of its WiFi collections.
That turned out to be mostly untrue. The company announced last week that it discovered a "mistake" in the code being used to collect info and that it was, in fact, collecting some information on who was visiting what websites on which WiFi networks. Google said that the data was never used in any capacity and that it had no plans to keep the unwanted data around.
The company said it was looking to destroy the data immediately with the help of an independent review (an update to Google's blog post from Friday indicates that data collected in Ireland has already been deleted). The company also said that it would stop collecting any information about WiFi networks in light of this discovery.
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