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Google Found Guilty of Australian Privacy Breach
schliz writes "The Australian Privacy Commissioner has found Google guilty of breaching the country's Privacy Act when it collected unsecured WiFi payload data with its Street View vehicles. While the Commissioner could not penalize the company, Google agreed to publish an apology on its Australian blog, and work more closely with her during the next three years. Globally, Google is said to have collected some 600 GB of data transmitted over public WiFi networks. In May, the company put its high-definition Australian Street View plans on hold to audit its processes."
I really don't understand the issue: If you willingly radiate an unsecured Wi-Fi signal (or any type of signal), how can you claim a breach of "privacy"? *NOTHING* was "private"!
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Really gotta love stupid Australian laws and our legal system.
Sir you have been found guilty of breaching the privacy of our citizens by listening to what they freely broadcast anyway. You are hereby ordered to pay the sum of a 250 word letter saying sorry. Atta boy there. [ruffles hair]
I agree to a point. If you don't secure your connection and get sniffed, it is your fault.
The fact that Google snooped it does not make their actions any better. If they had snooped and only picked up SSID and Mac addresses, then that is one thing.
This may have served an important purpose, it woke people up about security on WIFI connections.
Fight Spammers!
granted it was questionable to log those packets, it was right they didn't get fined for what anyone with a laptop could do outside the local starbucks or cafe
Here's the question:
Who else might be doing what Google has been found to be guilty of doing? You see, it does not require a lot of sophisticated equipment to pull it off.
With so many data collection points working for Google, that's roughly what, three days' worth of data collected? It might take lesser companies a couple weeks to collect that much.
It's not ok for google to inadvertadly capture minute packets of useless information, but it's ok for the government to direct ISPs to intercept data illegally.
The Australian Labor party have time and time again broken their promises, Barging ahead with Policies that their citizens do no want and completely fucking up things they tried to achieve
The only reason Google are in hot water is because they stood up to Senator Conroy and he got upset about it.
I for one will be making my vote count this year and I urge all fellow Australian slashdotters to do the same.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of cats. MEOW!!
This is absolutely astounding. OK, when I heard we were "investigating" Google I thought "well to me as an IT person, that seems pointless, but I guess it's a moral and legal issue and something should be done to set an example". Had I known that we had absolutely no power whatsoever to penalize them in ANY WAY, I would not have been happy about pissing taxpayer's funds down the drain for the sake of an _apology_ ... on a _blog_ !
I don't know how much we spent on this "investigation", but clearly, every single cent of it was a waste if all we got out of it was an apology on a blog. What was the POINT ? Do we think we scared Google somehow ? Oh yeah, coz that apology letter would have really hurt them to write, wouldn't it ?
Goddamn you Labor, stop pissing our money away on bullshit meaningless _stunts_ like this that do no good whatsoever and just waste taxpayer's money. NBN be damned, I'm getting sick of your ineptitude.
Yes they did. What they did wrong was not delete the data before they announced they intercepted it.
> The Australian Privacy Commissioner has found Google guilty of breaching the country's Privacy Act when it collected unsecured WiFi payload data with its Street View vehicles.
The Australian Privacy Act is weak and ineffectual. I looked into it and discovered if you make a complaint against an organisation, the worst the commissioner can do is make a non-binding determination which has no legal or financial penalties against the violator. And they can keep doing what they're doing. You have no recourse. It's feel-good legislation that gives the public a reassuring feeling something is there, without having to do anything.
So say some organisation takes all your personal information and dumps it on the web for all to see. They will get a finding made against them, but can keep doing it. Your only recourse is if someone uses that information to commit a crime, you can use the privacy commissioner's finding as evidence when you're applying for damages. But you can't use it to order them to take that information down.
http://www.privacy.org.au/Papers/OFPCPteSectReview0412.doc
Um, anyone remember the last time Australia asked for an Apology?
Anyone got a light for my sig?
I thought it was "Privacy Beach" and street view cars collected photos of hot topless women.
Damn.
What they did wrong was not delete the data before they announced they intercepted it.
Exactly so.
They are incurring the wrath because the did the RIGHT THING, by admitting their mistake.
No one else will ever do that again. They will just purge it.
Fess up if anybody asks, and say they destroyed it as soon as they realized their error. Case closed.
No good deed goes unpunished.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
I'm curious to see what parts of the Privacy Act they actually broke. As much as the technology part of it makes sense (if it's unencrypted it's your fault), can we really argue properly either way without knowing exactly how Google was determined to be in error?
Or are you just making blind assumptions about what you think happened vs what really happened according to the evidence provided by Google to the Australian Government?
In other comments on this activity, it appears that you are wrong and that Google *did* actually connect to private (even if insecure) networks and *did* collect more than beacon data.
If you have evidence that can show that Google did not collect personal data, by all means share it.
Note, that Google worked with the Australian government and undoubtedly handed over whatever data it had collected. I'm pretty sure that the Australian Government would have handed the data to people familiar (if not experts) with this type of activity and asked them to analyse it. Thus the "guilty" is quite likely founded on real evidence, whereas your post is likely based on speculation.
If Google is not guilty then I'm sure they will appeal this to the courts. If they don't then that is Google agreeing with the Australian Government and disagreeing with you.
If I connect my laptop to your Wifi network because I know your network password (lets say I guess it), is that connection authorised without you saying I can do it?
If I create a "guest" login on a web server that has no password and someone logs into it without my authorisiation, is that against the law or not?
If that "guest" login also has "guest" as a password and a hacker guesses both and logs in without my authorisation, is that against the law or not?
The correct answer to all four of these questions is "no." Accessing a private resource that you have not been given prior authorisation to access is effectively trespassing. Think of it like someone walking onto your property because you don't have a fence. Whilst it maybe careless and inviting trouble, in no instance does that recklessness on the part of the owner give others the right to do what they choose.
Just because the radio data is being broadcast and you can receive it, you are not automatically entitled to access or use hardware that is transmitting it or connected to the transmitter. Consider that when you connect to a wireless network that you are communicating with a wireless access point, not just receiving its data, and thereafter sending data to that network.
It has already been admitted by Google that they received data from wireless networks that in turn required them to actually connect to those wireless networks.
In actual fact, there is only one possible outcome in every case where a government is investigating at that is for Google to be found guilty. If anything else happens then it could be argued that not even encrypted data is private. The question isn't about what form the data takes but whether a 3rd party has a right to access it without authorisation.
Lets say that I collect a month of your encrypted wifi data and then break all of your encryption keys. I then post it all over the web. The data was broadcast over the airwaves, therefore it was public. That it was encrypted was just you believing, foolishly, that the data was private and therefore unable to be accessed by others. How would you feel about that? Whether or not the data is encrypted is beside the point - you're broadcasting it to everyone within about 100', so why should you have any right to privacy as a result of that broadcasting? If you want your encrypted data to be private then data that is not encrypted must also be private. Electromagnetic waves have no specific property that says "I'm private" or "I'm encrypted". The presence (or lack thereof) of encryption is not a representation of whether or not something is or should be private. Start by accepting that all privately transmitted radio data is private unless you're specifically broadcasting for public benefit.