Privacy commissioner: Google Street View cars have been collecting Canadians’ personal data via Wi-Fi networks

The Toronto Star reports:

An investigation by Stoddart’s office found complete emails, addresses, usernames and passwords. Even a list that provided the names of people suffering from certain medical conditions was collected.

“This incident was a serious violation of Canadians’ privacy rights,” she said in a statement.

The breach occurred because a software engineer did not forward programming code he had written in 2006 to a Google lawyer to review it for privacy implications. That code captured the content of communications over unencrypted networks and was a part of software designed to collect information for the mapping service about locations of public Wi-Fi signals.

Despite this pretty massive breach of privacy, Google will not be prosecuted for its mistakes. The company acknowledges it was a goof, is co-operating with investigations, and says it will delete the data it collected after the investigations are complete.

That wraps things up in a nice little package, but can’t we find a more sinister explanation? Maybe the privacy commissioner just really, really wants one of those robot cars that Google recently announced. Lord knows we do.

• Google accidentally mapped much more than addresses, says privacy boss [Toronto Star] • Preliminary Letter of Findings [Privacy Commissioner of Canada] • Google ditches all Street View Wi-Fi scanning [CNET] • Google snooping earns reproach [Vancouver Sun] • Google Street View broke Canada’s privacy law with Wi-Fi capture [Guardian UK]