Over the weekend, Google released an updated version of a previously heavily redacted Federal Communication Commission (FCC) document that now reveals startling details about the company's Street View project.
The new information indicates that, contrary to what the company had maintained, there were several employees and at least one senior manager who knew of the data gathering occurring within the Street View project.
The passages make frequent reference to an unnamed programmer, dubbed "Engineer Doe," who was intimately involved in developing the data collection tool for Street View. The document states that, in response to the FCC's letter of inquiry (LOI), "Google made clear for the first time that Engineer Doe's software was deliberately written to capture payload data." And, according to the document, the engineer's software tool "would collect payload data that Engineer Doe thought might prove useful for other Google services."
Based on previous reports, these facts aren't much of a revelation. However, the real meat of the document lies in its detailing of who knew what and when regarding Street View data collection. On page 15 of the 25-page document, the FCC says that "As early as 2007 and 2008, Street View team members had wide access to Engineer Doe's Wi-Fi data collection document and code, which revealed his plan to collect payload data... Engineer Doe specifically told two engineers working on the project, including a senior manager, about collecting payload data. Nevertheless, managers of the Street View project and other Google employees who worked on Street View have uniformly asserted in declarations and interviews that they did not learn the Street View cars were collecting payload data until April or May 2010."
These details come several days after Google agreed to pay the $25,000 fine imposed by the FCC related to the matter.
Speaking to the LA Times, Google spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker said, "We decided to voluntarily make the entire document available except for the names of individuals… While we disagree with some of the statements made in the document, we agree with the FCC's conclusion that we did not break the law. We hope that we can now put this matter behind us."
That may be wishful thinking. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) recently asked the Department of Justice to step into the Google Wi-Fi data collection issue, arguing that a recent $25,000 fine doesn't go far enough.
Heavy Internet and Wi-Fi users unfamiliar with the document detailing the FCC's efforts to extract information about Google's Street View project may want to take a look at the findings. The report includes examples of what the FCC deemed inappropriate data gathering by the Street View program in France, the Netherlands, and Canada. One passage cites a 2010 report from Canada's Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada(OPC), in which sample payload data that Google collected in Canada was examined. The Payload data in Canada included "complete email messages, along with email headers, IP addresses, machine hostnames, and the contents of cookies, instant messages and chat sessions."
Toward the end of the document, the FCC concludes, "For more than two years, Google's Street View cars collected names, addresses, telephone numbers, URLs, passwords, e-mail, text messages, medical records, video and audio files, and other information from Internet users in the United States."
