Germany Demands Google Forfeit Citizens' Wi-Fi Data

eldavojohn writes "Germany has ordered Google to give up hard disk drives used to store German data collected during their Street View operations in that country. This follows Google's admission last week (after prodding from the Germans) that it had collected the data from unsecured wireless area networks from around the entire world as its roving cars collected the photo archive for Street View. Google says they've offered to just destroy the data, in cooperation with national regulators, but the German government wants to know what they've collected. They do not think that destroying the drives suffices for compliance with the laws. Officials went so far as to say of the situation, 'It is not acceptable that a company operating in the EU does not respect EU rules.' Germany has certainly been keeping their eye on the search giant." The Ars coverage notes that the US FTC may be looking more closely at Google's collection as well.

Comments

Re:Privacy laws

[TooMuchToDo]

Agreed. I trust Google a lot more to do the right thing and destroy the data than the German government. Who's track record is better?

Mr. Googurns

[Itninja]

""Oooh, the Germans are mad at me... I'm so scared! Oooooh, the Germans...Uh oh...The Germans are coming after me... Oh, don't let the Germans come after me... Oh, the Germans are coming after me... No, they're so big and strong... Protect me from the Germans!"