Google and Apple are without question two of the most successful and important companies—tech or otherwise—in the world today. But a pair of recent missteps has the Federal Communications Commission and the FBI demanding that companies and consumers step up their efforts to safeguard consumers’ privacy and identities.
As eSecurity Planet reports, the AT&T gaffe that exposed the e-mail addresses of some 144,000 iPad owners and the controversy surrounding Google’s “accidental” collection of Internet activity through its Street View cars has both government agencies clamoring for increased responsibility on the part of technology companies to at least limit the possibility of other data breaches down the road.
Both Google and AT&T (NYSE: T) have been taking their own approach to damage control. Google has offered a public mea culpa in the form of a corporate blog post, and has been meeting with government and law-enforcement officials in the United States and several countries in Europe, where it is facing multiple criminal investigations stemming from its Street View misstep.
For its part, AT&T sent a letter over the weekend to its iPad customers apologizing for the security breach and downplaying its severity.
But both the FCC and FBI say that’s not nearly enough.
Recent privacy scares involving Apple’s iPad and Google’s Street View have prompted the Federal Communications Commission to speak out, warning businesses and consumers about lax security and highlighting its current efforts to beef up oversight.
Last month, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) revealed that its Street View cars — deployed to collect images of cities, block-by-block – had mistakenly captured the contents of Internet transmissions on unsecured Wi-Fi networks.
Then last week, a group of security researchers went public with a flaw in AT&T’s system that they exploited to obtain the e-mail addresses of more than 100,000 owners of Apple’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPad.
