Google faces global criminal charges for collecting your private info

Google in even MORE hot water

Recently, Google has been called to the carpet when it was discovered that Google Street View cars were not just collecting public wifi data such as SSID info, but were “unknowingly” collecting payload data which Google says they have since segregated from other data on the network and as of May they have halted their Street View cars.

It has been reported that Google not only violated personal privacy by collecting public SSID information but by collecting email passwords, web activity and personal data from computers as their Google Street View cars drove by. Google continues to claim that the data collection was accidental and they did not know that their cars were set up to data collect.

Despite claims of halting their info-gathering cars, Austria has banned Google Street View cars and today, the Connecticut AG announces they will lead a multi-state probe about Google’s unauthorized collection of personal data.

On Friday, the Massachusetts AG Martha Coakley announced that her office “will be seeking information from Google to ensure that Street View is not acquiring personal information” which is a fancy way of saying that they’ll be eyeballing Google as well.

According to The Independent, today, “the French data protection agency CNIL said it was examining private data collected for Street View, including emails and possibly banking details, to decide if the firm should face criminal charges or other sanctions.”

“It was a mistake for us to include code in our software that collected payload data, but we believe we did nothing illegal. We’re working with the relevant authorities to answer their questions and concerns,” a Google representative said in a statement, according to the L.A. Times.

CC Licensed image courtesy of byrion via Flickr.com.