Another Day, Another Personal Data Security Concern

It appears as though Google Street View cars were collecting more than photos and geographic data as they cruised down your street. When German authorities asked Google to divulge the data it had collected, Google revealed that it's cars had "been mistakenly collecting samples of payload data from open networks". This means that if you were surfing on an open/unsecured wireless network as the Street View car drove past, you may have been providing Google with parts of an email, text, photographs or the website you were viewing. Google claims that the problem dates back to 2006 when "an engineer working on an experimental wi-fi project wrote a piece of code that sampled all categories of publicly broadcast wi-fi data". 

Guess they thought that they'd just leave it in there until somebody noticed! Sorry Google but I find it a little hard to believe that this went totally unnoticed. 

Source: BBC News

Street View Team Hitting The Road In Canada

Over the next few weeks Google employees will be cruising the streets of 11 of Canada's largest cities, including Halifax, Montreal, Winnipeg and Calgary, capturing data for their popular Street View searches. This is not the first round of data capture in Canada, Street View teams had previously collected some Canadian street data, which it plans to make public soon. There's no word on when the data from this round will be publicly released however. Google makes it a practice to blank out faces and license plates, but you might want to be on your best behaviour for the next few weeks lest you be caught doing something you'd rather not have etched in time. "Many a Web page is now dedicated to finding gems such as accidentally documented street fights, crimes in progress and, of course, people walking in or out of adult stores."

Source: Globe and Mail

Boring Lawsuit Filed Against Google For Street View Photos

Aaron and Christine Boring of Pittsburgh's Franklin Park area have filed an invasion of privacy lawsuit against Google over pictures of their home that appeared in Google's Street View. The Boring's contend that images appearing on Street View had to have been taken from their driveway, which they say was posted as a private road. Google's response has been to remove the offending images, and company spokesman Larry Yu says "We absolutely respect that people may not be comfortable with some of the imagery on the site," and "We actually make it pretty easy for people to submit a request to us to remove the imagery." The Boring's attorney Dennis Moskal says "Isn't litigation the only way to change a big business' conduct with the public?" adding "What happened to their accountability?"

I find this all a bit funny, how many people do you think actually viewed the photo's of their home before the lawsuit was filed? Don't you think that they have brought more attention upon themselves by going the litigation route rather than using the mechanism offered by Google? Or dare I say it, is money actually the motivating factor? Globe and Mail article here. Smoking Gun article here.

Google Street View Team Banned From US Military Bases

After having asked for and being granted permission to a Texas military base, the Pentagon has issued an order to all Defence Department bases and installations to ban access to their sites. At issue is the panoramic street level views that are made freely available on the Internet. "[It shows]where all the guards are, it shows how the barriers go up and down, it shows how to get in and out of buildings, and I think that poses a real security risk to our military installations," Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, chief of the U.S. Northern Command, said. Google spokesman Larry Yu said that the images of Fort Sam Houston where taken down immediately when requested and that "It is against our policy to request access to military bases for the purpose of capturing imagery in Street View," saying also that a Google crew mistakenly asked for access to a base, breaking Google policy.

Street View may not comply with Canadian privacy legislation

Canadian Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart has informed Google that it's Street View technology that presents photographic street level images of cities, ironically created by Calgary based Immersive Media, may not comply with Canadian privacy legislation. In a letter written to Google Stoddart says "In particular, it does not appear to meet the basic requirements of knowledge, consent, and limited collection and use as set out in the legislation." Google is apparently considering blurring images of people and license plates in an attempt to comply. While the service has not yet deployed any Canadian data this CBC report indicates that Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City have all been surveyed.