{"id":131,"date":"2010-10-27T12:44:57","date_gmt":"2010-10-27T11:44:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.silicontechnix.com\/?p=131"},"modified":"2010-10-27T14:19:08","modified_gmt":"2010-10-27T13:19:08","slug":"google-street-view-cars-grabbed-emails-urls-passwords","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.silicontechnix.com\/?p=131","title":{"rendered":"Google: Street View cars grabbed emails, urls, passwords"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In addition to my previous post <a title=\"https:\/\/blogs.silicontechnix.com\/?p=39\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.silicontechnix.com\/?p=39\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>&#8220;Privacy is dead, People&#8221;<\/strong> <\/a><\/p>\n<div id=\"body\">\n<p>Google has publicly acknowledged that <strong>the WiFi data collected by its  world-roving Street View cars contained entire emails, URLs, and  passwords<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday afternoon, with a <a href=\"http:\/\/googleblog.blogspot.com\/2010\/10\/creating-stronger-privacy-controls.html\" target=\"_blank\">blog post<\/a>,  senior vice president of engineering Alan Eustace also said \u2013\u00a0yet again  \u2013 that most of the data is &#8220;fragmentary,&#8221; and that the company intends  to delete the data &#8220;as soon as possible.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div id=\"article-mpu-container\">\n<div id=\"ad-mpu1-spot\"><noscript><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/ad.uk.doubleclick.net\/jump\/reg.security.4159\/identity;tile=2;pos=top;dcove=d;sz=336x280;ord=TMgMZ8CoZGUAADZ4HX8AAAPY?\" target=\"_blank\"><font size=\"1\">[AD]<\/font><\/a><br \/>\n<\/noscript><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;I would like to apologize again for the fact that we collected it in  the first place,&#8221; Eustace wrote. &#8220;We are mortified by what happened.&#8221;  The company has always said that the data collection was a &#8220;<strong>mistake<\/strong>,&#8221;  saying that code developed by a single engineer was added to its cars  although project leaders had no intention of doing so. Independent  investigations have said that the data contained emails and passwords as  well as home addresses and phone numbers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>In May, it was Eustace who revealed \u2013\u00a0with another blog post \u2013 that Google Street View cars had been <a href=\"http:\/\/googleblog.blogspot.com\/2010\/05\/wifi-data-collection-update.html\" target=\"_blank\">collecting data sent over unsecured WiFi networks<\/a>, contradicting previous claims from the company.<\/p>\n<p>With earlier public statements, Google had said its cars were  collecting only the SSIDs that identify WiFi networks and the MAC  addresses that identify particular network hardware, including routers.  Google uses such data in products that rely on location data, such as  Google Maps.<\/p>\n<p>Privacy authorities across the globe launched investigations of  Google&#8217;s WiFi data collection, and some concluded that the company <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theregister.co.uk\/2010\/10\/20\/google_has_no_plans_to_resume_street_view_wifi_collection\/\">had violated local laws<\/a>,  including, most recently, Canada privacy commissioner Jennifer  Stoddart. Spain has filed a lawsuit against the web giant. Seven  investigations have been completed so far, and others are still pending.<\/p>\n<p>When Eustace first revealed the WiFi payload collection, he said the  company would review its &#8220;procedures to ensure that our controls are  sufficiently robust to address these kinds of problems in the future.&#8221;  And regulators demanded such reviews as well. So, with Friday&#8217;s blog  post, Eustace also laid out the company&#8217;s new internal policies.<\/p>\n<p>The company has appointed Google researcher Alma Whitten as director  of privacy for both engineering and product management. &#8220;Her focus will  be to ensure that we build effective privacy controls into our products  and internal practices,&#8221; Eustace wrote.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;She has been our engineering lead on privacy for the last two years,  and we will significantly increase the number of engineers and product  managers working with her in this new role.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Google has also vowed to increase privacy training among its  employees. &#8220;We\u2019re enhancing our core training for engineers and other  important groups (such as product management and legal) with a  particular focus on the responsible collection, use and handling of  data.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Beginning in December, all employees will also go through a new  information security awareness program, which will include &#8220;clear  guidance on both security and privacy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s more, engineering project leaders will keep document detailing  the privacy design of each project they work on. &#8220;This document will  record how user data is handled and will be reviewed regularly by  managers, as well as by an independent internal audit team.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Google has said that its cars collected about 600GB of WiFi payload data across 30 countries. Some of the data has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theregister.co.uk\/2010\/05\/21\/google_halts_wifi_payload_data_deletion\/\">already been deleted<\/a> at the insistance of regulators in various countries, including  Ireland, Denmark, and Austria. But after complaints from a UK-based  independent privacy watchdog, it stopped the deletions, which were  overseen by a third-party.<\/p>\n<p>Google did not immediately respond when we asked when the deletion would resume. \u00ae<\/p>\n<h3>Update<\/h3>\n<p>Google has responded. &#8220;In some countries where we&#8217;ve been instructed  to do so by the authorities, we have deleted the data, &#8220;a company  spokeswoman said. &#8220;We want to delete the rest of the payload data as  soon as possible and will continue to work with the authorities to  determine the best way forward.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Refrence:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theregister.co.uk\/2010\/10\/22\/google_acknowledges_street_views_wifi_data_contained_emails_urls_passwords\/\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.theregister.co.uk\/2010\/10\/22\/google_acknowledges_street_views_wifi_data_contained_emails_urls_passwords\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a class=\"alignleft\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theregister.co.uk\/2010\/10\/26\/google_privacy_flap\/\" target=\"_blank\">Google illegally divulges user searches, suit claims<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a class=\"alignleft\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theregister.co.uk\/2010\/10\/26\/google_privacy_flap\/\" target=\"_blank\"><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In addition to my previous post &#8220;Privacy is dead, People&#8221; Google has publicly acknowledged that the WiFi data collected by its world-roving Street View cars contained entire emails, URLs, and passwords. On Friday afternoon, with a blog post, senior vice president of engineering Alan Eustace also said \u2013\u00a0yet again \u2013 that most of the data [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[21,24,56,55,50,54,23],"class_list":["post-131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-security","tag-google","tag-gps","tag-hacking","tag-mac-address","tag-privacy","tag-street-view","tag-wifi"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p12j6H-27","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.silicontechnix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.silicontechnix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.silicontechnix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.silicontechnix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.silicontechnix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=131"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.silicontechnix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.silicontechnix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131\/revisions\/134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.silicontechnix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.silicontechnix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.silicontechnix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}