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Australian Police To Investigate Google Over Wi-Fi Scanning
daria42 writes "Those who thought the brouhaha over Google's scanning of Wi-Fi networks by its Street View cars was over (whether you believe it was deliberate or not) are destined to be disappointed. News comes from Australia over the weekend that the Australian government has referred the matter to the Australian Federal Police for investigation. The country's Attorney General, Robert McClelland, was quoted saying, 'Obviously I won't pre-empt the outcome of that investigation but they relate in substantial part to possible breaches of the Telecommunications Interception Act, which prevents people accessing electronic information other than for authorized purposes.'"
Is this the world's favorite new way to waste time, suing google for recording publicly available information from wifi spots as they drive?
idiots. ALL idiots.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Australian police arrest a subject for illegal surveillance for overhearing another parties conversation while walking down the street.
Long live the BSD license
...that as an American, I'm looking to Europe and Australia to actually stand up to Google and stop them from collecting every bit of data they can about me, like actually sending a van outside my house to grab information about my home network.
Part of being in a public place is that you accept the risk being overheard. The thing about Wi-fi networks is that there are many publicly available networks out there that allow people to use them. How are we to distinguish if its OK to use some of them but not others if people are too lazy to go through the necessary steps to secure their networks? Just by using someones public network you can intercept their communications. Having a public network you broadcast your data over is akin to leaving a basket full of stuff outside with a sign that says "Some things in here are free but Im not telling you what is or isnt, take these items at your own risk". Now, Google admitted that they accidentally kept extra data they should not have, and then promptly agreed to delete all of it. They were not doing what they were doing as a form of surveillance. Its pretty much the same thing as video taping a public place, accidentally taping someone talking about private business and then deleting that portion of the tape once you realize whats on it.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
Both of you are quite right and one of you is breaking Australian privacy laws. The problem here is that everything hangs on the definition of what a "reasonable person" would expect of their privacy. I posted an example the the other slashdot google article then went through the Australian legal system:
1. Girl standing at her bedroom window naked gets photographed from the street. She's in her own home but in plain view of the street -> Fine. You have not right to privacy because any reasonable person would expect to be seen from the street.
2. Same situation except house is now 150m from the road and the camera has a 300mm lens on it. -> Not fine. Even though nothing about the situation has changed except the distance involved and better equipment a reasonable person would not expect to be photographed in their home by someone with a long focal length camera.
No doubt some idiot judge out there would rule that they were in breach of privacy for recording stuff on public airwaves. Mind you I think they have better chance of getting them under invasion of privacy than under the Telecommunications Interception Act
The problem is the TIA act in Australia forbids unauthorised interception of *any* medium that forms part of the Australian Telecommunications Network, which your home network does in fact form part of.
This is a massive deal under Australian law. There is a specific law that specifically prohibits what Google did. So, yes, recording even a single packet is a massive deal under this law.