Three U.S. congresswoman who take Google to explain why and how it collected datum being transmit over Wi - Fi connection from its Street View cameras were not lenify by the hunting giant ’s response .
Representative Henry Waxman of California , Representative Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Representative Joe Barton of Texas on Friday postedGoogle ’s responseto their interrogation online and said they continue to be concerned about the bodily function .
“ Google now confesses it has been collecting citizenry ’s selective information for years , yet lay claim they still do not know exactly what they collect and who was vulnerable . This is deeply troubling for a companionship that bases its business poser on forgather consumer data,”Barton state . “ That loser is even more disturbing and ironic in position of the fact that Google is lobby the governance to govern Internet inspection and repair providers , but not Google . ”
Google recently disclosed thatit had been collecting information station over unlocked Wi - Fi networkswhile garner images with its Street View cars . Google uses such car to take the photos that make up Street View , a service that overlays images on maps .
Google has n’t analyzed the info it collected from the Wi - Fi networks so it does n’t sleep together what data it has , the troupe said in response to the questions from the congressmen . “ It is potential that the payload data point may have include personal data if a drug user at the moment of collection spread such info , ” Google wrote .
Because it does n’t sleep with what it has , it also ca n’t say how many multitude may have been bear on . “ Moreover , we have not conducted an psychoanalysis of the payload information in a style that enable us to know on the nose what was collect . We therefore can not limit the number of somebody affected by the consignment data collection , ” Google indite .
The information was never used in any mathematical product or service and was only viewed twice , the caller said . The technologist who design the software viewed it and the company also looked at it when it became aware that the data point was being pile up , it said . Google has since remove the data from its net so it is accessible only to hoi polloi creditworthy for securing the data .
Even if the Street View cars collected sensitive datum , it would be unmanageable to decipher . The datum was stored in aggregate , binary shape , Google enjoin .
The caller also said that it has decide to turn back collecting any Wi - Fi datum at all from Street View cable car . It had been collecting other information that could help in determining precise locating .
Google was ineffective to resolve a few other questions that the congressman asked . For instance , it could n’t describe the relative frequency with which the cars drove streets . It also could n’t say how many Wi - Fi networks it collected data point from .
Google seemed to strain to distance itself from responsibility for the data point collection practice session . “ As we have notice , neither Google ’s direction nor any Google product mathematical group requested that the lading information be collected , and Google never used the load data in any of its products or service , ” it state . Google has tell that the code was written by an engineer as an experimentation and mistakenly include in the final Street View cars .
It also say that it believes it ’s lawful to collect data transmitted over unsecured networks . “ We accentuate that being lawful and being the correct thing to do are two different things , and that collecting payload data was a misunderstanding for which we are profoundly sorry , ” it said .
Google faces case and investigation over the exit in the U.S. , Canada , France and Germany .
