Slashdot Mirror
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.
Hate to say it but if you have an unsecured wireless network you are freely broadcasting your data over the airwaves for anyone to listen. Laws are not the solution to this, proper security is. I can't walk out on my porch and yell sensitive information then fine you for having heard it.
You want the data turned over to the government? That is the absolute last thing I would want if google inappropriately collected my wifi activity. The government should supervise the destruction, not be given the data set to do with as they please...
There's a massive difference between wired communication and wireless. If you honestly can't see that (which I truly doubt is the case), you could be in the parliament of an EU member state!
Seriously, security is the answer to security. Making it illegal to detect and record open-air RF is like making it illegal to see things.
But that's not what has happened *at all*. From the article of the slashdot story this story links to:
They're basically saying "let's just forget anything happened" by offering to delete the data. Uh-nuh, not really how it works. If they didn't pay attention and ran software that violated privacy laws, they should be punished. THEN we can delete the data...
What are you talking about? What "persecution"? If they violated laws, they get punished. Where's the problem? I'd rather have corporations involuntarily investigated, than then "admitting their wrongdoings" and there being no consequences for it.
Who's track record is better?
In recent years? EU governments (or Germany in particular) vs. US corporations (or Google in particular)? Seriously?
Europeans have learned some hard lessons from history, some of them still within living memory. One of them is a healthy distrust of government; you may have noticed that we have removed several formerly powerful administrations from office in recent years. But another is that the US does not hold its businesses to account very effectively. Thus, we tend to take a rather stricter line with big business in many respects, privacy and data protection among them.
As long as it is the privacy/data protection authorities who are arranging the destruction of the data (and potentially bringing legal action against Google), and not any other branch of government who have no more legitimate right to access that data than Google, I would far rather the drives were removed from Google's hands.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
They accidentally collected this data? Yeah right.
Lets assume the quality control for code vital for a project costing many millions was slack enough to let this kind of feature slip by test.
Would they have failed to notice them filling dozens of HDDs a week when they should've only needed a small number for a country?
When they went home and looked over the data, you think they didn't notice that they were capturing significant amounts of data alongside SSID, IP and location information?
They knew all about this and did nothing to stop it. Heck they probably saw it as a bonus (must've kept doing it for a reason, the data storage would eat up valuable budget money)