Google is in hot water with European privacy regulators over an error that allowed its Street View project to collect data sent in the clear to and from the open Wi-Fi access points is vehicles encounter. It’s the latest black eye for a service that has already been in privacy authorities’ cross-hairs over other sorts of data collection.
While the search giant says it’s ceasing to collect the Wi-Fi data, it’s also explaining how such a glitch occurred in the first place. eSecurity Planet takes a look.
Google has issued an apology for inadvertently collecting the contents of users’ Web transmissions as part of its Street View project, which has come under fire from European data-collection authorities alarmed at the privacy implications of the effort.
To capture a curbside view of an ever-expanding number of world cities, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) has been dispatching a fleet of vehicles equipped with cameras, and then compiling the imagery to provide a navigable view of the location on the Web.