Germany fines Google for privacy violations
Worldwide, Daily news | ankakh | April 22, 2013 18:48German authorities said on Monday they had fined Google for illegally collecting massive amounts of personal data including emails, passwords and photos while setting up its disputed Street View service.
The data protection office in the northern city of Hamburg said it had slapped the US Internet giant with a 145,000-euro ($189,000) penalty for privacy violations on what it called a nearly unprecedented scale.
It found that while specially equipped Google vehicles took city snapshots between 2008 and 2010 for its Street View function, which supplements its standard map service, they had also picked up data from unsecured wireless networks.
“Among the information gathered in the drive-bys were significant amounts of personal data of varying quality. For example emails, passwords, photos and chat protocols were collected,” the Hamburg authorities said in a statement.
Facebook
Tweet This
RSS Feed
Email This Post
Loading ...
