Google’s Street View has been in a fix over privacy issues which have been making rounds as the Street View Cars have been using the source of numerous cell phones, laptops and other devices which are Wi-Fi enabled. CNET has confirmed that this practice has in fact raised issues relating to privacy.
These cars were sent out with an intention to collect Wi-Fi access points locations, but the search engine giant went a step ahead as distinctive computer identifiers and the identifiers of other gadgets which use wireless network along with street addresses all over the world were recorded. The worst was when this data was available few weeks ago for each and every user on Google.com.
Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL), the French data protection authority had come in contact with CNET over with this issue and had confirmed that their investigation noted that these cars had collected Ids of unique hardware of all these devices. CNIL had in fact probed earlier in March and had a fine imposed of 143,000 USD which amounts up to 100,000 euros.
This issue has been on an incline and the concern revolving around it is simultaneously growing. A similar problem was seen in April when Apple faced the heat as it had recorded logs of the data to get an approximate location via iPhones. That problem was however resolved, but it led to many other disclosures which related to similar practices of violating privacy issues which related to locations of other companies.
CNET was indirectly the prime noter of this act by Google as on 15th June, Ashkan Soltani who is a security consultant had detailed CNET about the violating issue. It was however not clear as to the violations were limited to wireless routers and access points or even to the devices of the clients such as mobile phones and computers. The search engine giant following the concerns, stopped their practice a week later.
Ashkan Soltani raised questions and asked for clarity as to how and why were the hardware locations were published on one of the most used search engine. Google however did not reply to the requests which were made on a repetitive basis related to Ashkan’s article in CNET a week ago. Last month Google had made a statement that they collect details of Wi-Fi access points such as MAC addresses which are publically broad-casted. Google reported this only for their practices currently and not for the past.
The explanation for such an error relating to Wi-Fi devices was made simple as it was said that a glitch from the programmer’s end resulted in Street View Cars to collect the data of unencrypted wireless communications along with the addresses of client hardware. This unintentional vacuumed data was later on added to geolocation database of Google and was available without and restriction to anyone till June.
The chief identity architect of Microsoft, Kim Cameron had commented on this issue way back in June last year and had stated that Street View Cars was vacuuming the addresses of client hardwares via a Wi-Fi connection. She had suspected that this data collecting of Street View was via many other sources and fixed Wi-Fi access points was just one of them.