Spain investigates Google for collecting private information

The Spanish Data Protection Agency has opened an investigation to determine whether Google violated laws protecting citizens' information and rights by capturing and preserving without permission information on the location of wi-fi networks and their associated traffic information.

—Madrid (EFE 5/19/2010)—

In a statement, the AEPD said that the investigation was ordered by the agency's director, Artemi Rallo. The investigation is focused on Google's “Street View” service, a photographic street guide that began in 2008.

To create this service, Google, as has recently been discovered, photographed the streets of different world cities and compiled information on the wi-fi networks, such as SSIDs (the network identifier, which sometimes matches the real name of the network's subscriber) and MAC addresses (a number that identifies the router's permanent address).

However, as Google acknowledged on its corporate blog, this activity also captured “inadvertently” information on traffic associated with the wi-fi networks (data transferred over open networks). The actions Google acknowledged could constitute a violation of the Organic Data Protection Law.

For its part, the AEPD has also issued an injunction urging the company to block the data on traffic associated with the wi-fi networks (payload) stored in its files that was obtained in Spanish territory by “Street View's” technical teams.