Google breaches national laws

Australian Communications Minister Stephen Conroy dubbed it the “single greatest breach in the history of privacy”. Google is under fire from the Australian government for breaking the country’s privacy law when it collected private information from wireless networks for the internet giant’s Street View mapping service.

Goggle’s Street View service has been controversial since its launch in 2007. Privacy groups and authorities fear that people filmed without their consent might captured doing things they wouldn’t want publicised. Nearly half of the 60 worldwide legal or criminal investigations faced by Google relate to the company’s Street View service. Google’s products have been the subject of bans or threatened bans in at least 23 countries, and faces 33 lawsuits in the US alone, according to new estimates by the analysts Aqute Intelligence.

According to Australia’s Privacy Commissioner, Karen Curtis, Google has breached the nation’s Privacy Act. The collection of private data for the project by Google is also seen as a serious matter, according to Curtis the Australian people should be appalled and should reasonably expect that private communications should remain private.

Under fire, Google has promised to conduct a privacy assessment on any new Street View projects involving personal information and regularly consult with the state about personal data collection activities in the future. Google has also agreed to publish an apology to Australians on its official blog, but has declined to comment beyond its blog statement.
The Australian Federal Police is also conducting a separate criminal investigation of Google over the project. The probe focuses in whether the company breached the country’s telecommunications interceptions act, which prevents people accessing electronic communications other than for authorised purposes.

Several other governments are investigating Google over the data collection, and there are growing concerns from regulators and consumer watchdogs worldwide that Google isn’t serious enough about people’s privacy, of course a charge the company refutes. In May, Google acknowledged it had mistakenly collected fragments of data over public Wi-Fi networks in more than 30 countries while it was collecting pictures of neighbourhoods for Street View , saying that it discovered the problem after German regulators launched an inquiry.

In the UK, the information commissioner ruled last year that Google’s Street View technology carries a small risk of privacy invasion but should not be stopped , although members of the public have taken direct action in at least one location to prevent the company from taking photographs on their streets.

And where does South Africa stand in these new proceedings? The country’s officials seem captivated by the project’s tourism capabilities. During the World Cup, seven of South Africa’s soccer stadiums were available on Street View a pitch level. Marthinus van Schalkwyk, minister of tourism believes that the service will be of great benefits to tourists allowing then them to explore tourist sites before physically gonging there.