Street View to be investigated for gathering sensitive user information

by Steven Mostyn - Oct 25 2010, 06:08

Street View is hogging headlines for the all the reasons again after news broke that Google's often intrusive interactive mapping service is facing the prospect of heavy fines for committing “gross invasion of privacy” via its image-gathering fleet of camera cars.

According to UK Information Commissioner Christopher Graham, Google and its Street View cars are being investigated, not because of gathering sensitive imagery, but rather because the cars have (apparently inadvertently) collected private email addresses and users passwords while passing through unprotected residential wireless networks.

Unsurprisingly, Internet privacy campaigners are far from impressed by Google's conduct, labelling it as “outrageous” and reiterating the need for a full and proper investigation.

“As if building up a database of photographs of millions of people's private homes wasn't enough, the news that Google has also 'harvested' email addresses and passwords is nothing short of outrageous,” commented Alex Deane, director of Big Brother Watch in a Guardian report. “Google must launch an urgent investigation as to how this gross invasion of privacy was allowed to happen.”

In answering the criticisms levelled at it, Google has insisted that any private data gathered by its Street View vehicles was done so accidentally and was never used via any of the search giant's products or services.

“In some instances entire emails and URLs were captured, as well as passwords,” conceded Google's Alan Eustice, senior vice president of engineering and research, in a statement posted to the official policy blog.

“We want to delete this data as soon as possible, and I would like to apologize again for the fact that we collected it in the first place,” he added. “We are mortified by what happened.”

If the Information Commissioner should find Street View to be in violation of personal privacy, Google could well be hit by a fine of up to £500,000 USD (around $785,000 USD) as per the powers granted to Mr. Graham's office.

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