[LINK] google misdeeds and Australia's Privacy Commissioner

[Jan Whitaker]

Google Wi-Fi snooping not so bad: privacy commissioner

Asher Moses
June 22, 2010 - 10:41AM

The Privacy Commissioner, Karen Curtis, has 
embarrassed Communications Minister Stephen 
Conroy by playing down the seriousness of Google's Wi-Fi spying bungle.

Authorities all over the world are investigating 
Google, including the Australian privacy watchdog 
and Australian Federal Police, for sucking up 
600GB of “payload data” from unsecured wireless 
networks over several years while taking pictures 
for its Street View mapping service.

Senator Conroy described the move as deliberate 
and labeled it the “single greatest breach in the 
history of privacy”. He also claimed personal 
banking details were hovered up by the search giant.

Curtis is still investigating the debacle but 
released some preliminary comments to this website.

Google met Curtis on May 17 and has since 
answered several follow-up questions about how it 
could have “mistakenly” sucked up people's 
personal information, including emails and passwords.

“At this stage, it appears payload data that has 
been collected comprises only fragments - 0.2-second snatches,” she said.

“My Office has not examined the payload data 
collected, and we have told Google not to examine it.”
[so how can she assert that "only fragments" were 
collected? This is illogical.]

Curtis rejected Senator Conroy's claims that 
banking transactions were captured, while also 
noting that Google did not collect personal 
information transmitted over encrypted Wi-Fi networks.

“Australian banks use secure internet connections 
and my Office is not aware of any instances where 
banking information has been collected,” she said.
[so what? What about other passwords to other 
services? Again, she is being very limited in her 
perspective. Is this ignorance or continued 
siding with corporations instead of the general public's interests?

The AFP is investigating whether Google breached 
the Telecommunications Interception Act and 
Curtis said she continued to liaise with the 
Attorney-General's department and the AFP on this.

“As part of our investigation we are working with 
our international privacy counterparts. Once my 
investigation concludes, I will be making a public statement,” she said.

In the US, the Connecticut attorney-general, 
Richard Blumenthal, said this week that he would 
lead a multi-state probe into whether Google's actions broke the law.

The US Federal Trade Commission is also 
investigating the breach and several class action 
lawsuits have been launched against Google.

Several European countries, including Germany, 
Britain, Spain, Italy and France, are conducting their own probes.

"My office will lead a multi-state investigation 
- expected to involve a significant number of 
states - into Google's deeply disturbing invasion 
of personal privacy," Blumenthal said in a statement.

"Consumers have a right and a need to know what 
personal information - which could include 
emails, web browsing and passwords - Google may have collected, how and why."

The French National Commission on Computing and 
Liberty has been examining some of the data on 
French citizens sucked up by Google and found 
that passwords and email messages were intercepted.

"It's still too early to say what will happen as 
a result of this investigation," CNIL told IDG.

"However, we can already state that 
 Google did 
indeed record e-mail access passwords [and] 
extracts of the content of email messages,"

CNIL said.

Google called on Stroz Freidberg to conduct a 
third-party audit of the matter and released a 
21-page report earlier this month.

The group Privacy International has seized on the 
report, saying it is evidence that Google had 
criminal intent in collecting the payload data.

Other groups, such as Electronic Frontiers 
Australia, have criticised this assertion, saying there was no smoking gun.

“The independent audit of the Google system shows 
that the system used for the Wi-Fi collection 
intentionally separated out unencrypted content 
(payload data) of communications and 
systematically wrote this data to hard drives,” Privacy International wrote.

“This is equivalent to placing a hard tap and a 
digital recorder onto a phone wire without consent or authorisation.”



This story was found at: 
http://www.theage.com.au/technology/security/google-wifi-snooping-not-so-bad-privacy-commissioner-20100622-ytdf.html 




Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com

Our truest response to the irrationality of the 
world is to paint or sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
~Madeline L'Engle, writer

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