It has become quite a common occurrence indeed whilst I am stuck in Maltese traffic that my smart phone brings up a note asking me to select a Wi-Fi Network. Names of such networks, sometimes unencrypted, range from the obscene to the hilarious and shows how much we have learned to love and utilise this wireless technology. Long are the days where I had to spend endless ritualistic moments trying to get an internet connection through dial-up with its nostalgic ping sounds raising my expectations that I might be lucky and get through.
The proliferation of Wi-Fi hotspots has also left its inedible mark on our right to privacy in ways we never thought possible. The latest example of how much of our own personal information is 'freely' available through thin air is surely Google's Street View project.
While Street View has not yet invaded our shores, the impact that the introduction of this novel and interesting service has made throughout various countries has surely served as an eye opener.
Street View, a technology that features on Google Maps and Google Earth, was launched in mid 2007 and provides photographic panoramic views from various positions along many streets throughout the world through the use of a whole fleet of specialised cars equipped with a multitude of cameras in order to take 360 degrees views of the streets they drive though. The cars are also equipped with 3G/GSM/Wi-Fi antennas for scanning 3G/GSM and Wi-Fi hotspots encountered on their routes. The collection of information about public Wi-Fi hotspots collected by the Street View cars was going to be fed to Google's location-based services database. It transpired that the cars were also scooping up data from open and unencrypted Wi-Fi networks and in some situations this data also included login details, passwords and in some situations complete email messages. All this led to a privacy scandal of mammoth proportions and ended Google once again in trouble.
The problem was originally discovered in Hamburg, Germany last year where data protection authorities asked Google for a breakdown of the information being collected by the Street View Cars. It emerged that apart from taking photographs, the cars were also scooping sensitive Wi-Fi information. This situation also arose in other jurisdictions such as France, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States amongst others. Just a few days ago a judge in San Fransisco ruled that Google could be sued for scooping up data from open Wi-Fi networks as the company's actions may have violated American federal laws on wire tapping. The judge did not accept Google's view that anyone could have intercepted these wireless signals and that the collection of the data was carried out by mistake.
Earlier on this year, France's privacy watchdog issued a fine amounting to 100,000 Euros to Google over the personal data collection whilst in the United Kingdom, the Information Commissioner's Office ordered the deletion of Wi-Fi personal data even though a study commissioned by the same office stated that Google did not grab "significant" personal details.
Following investigations, it transpired that the code that was installed as part of the Street View data grabbing application was developed in 2006 by a Google engineer who was taking advantage of the policy introduced by Google whereby employees can utilise 20% of their time to work on personal projects. Whilst Google admitted that such code ended up erroneously in Street View's applications, many were those who did not believe that this incident was the result of an engineer's careless error.
Canadian privacy authorities termed Google's accidental scooping of personal data available through unsecured Wi-Fi connections as a "serious violation" of Canada's privacy laws whilst the Australian government stated that this was "probably the single biggest breach in the history of privacy". Others, such as the organisation Privacy International, went even further claiming that there was criminal intent behind this collection of personal data.
It is clear that under European privacy laws, including their transposition in Malta, the scooping up of highly sensitive personal data available through open Wi-Fi networks, irrespective of whether such networks are encrypted or not, is not allowed. Locally, we still need to experience the influx of location based services and it will be at that stage when we will realise the magnitude of information that we make available through the use of Wi-Fi networks. As a starter, once should seriously consider some basic security tips including turning on encryption on your wireless routers and the usage of strong alphanumeric passwords.
Google has since then admitted the mistake and stopped logging Wi-Fi networks. Has this dented Google's reputation? It appears not. The internet giant just reported a net profit increase of 36% during the three month period April-June 2001 over the same period last year to 2.5 million dollars.
This is not the first time that Google's Street View crossed swords with the law. There were many widely reported incidents throughout the period from when Street View was launched where various citizens complained to the internet company that their right to privacy was breached especially when they were snapped in intimate moments or nakedly enjoying their back garden. This brings up the eternal question of whether taking a picture in a public place goes against privacy laws and whether there exists an expectation of privacy in public places. Surely the use of technology such as that equipped on the Street View cars has led us to re-examine this.
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