News - Google Street View did 'significantly breach' UK data laws

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Commissioner makes a U-turn in findings but won't dish out a fine.

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Read more.

How can you accidentally collect private data from an unsecured wifi?

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Originally Posted by Biscuit

How can you accidentally collect private data from an unsecured wifi?

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Yeah, that's kinda like accidentally having sex with the neighbours wife, or accidentally robbing a bank, etc.

'oops i accidentally hit the hack and steal button'

Why the heck do companies only get a warning when they do something that significant breaches the law???

If I "accidentally" parked on the wrong spot, I can fined. WTH.

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Originally Posted by usxhe190

Why the heck do companies only get a warning when they do something that significant breaches the law???

If I "accidentally" parked on the wrong spot, I can fined. WTH.

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It's because you're not filthy rich.

Because if there was a warning-->fine system e.g. for parking, people on holiday would really not give a damn where they parked because they're never going to go back to that street/town again so they may as well use up their warning, they're never going to get fined. So with the number of people doing that, it just wouldn't be a practical parking solution and residents/everyone else would get narked off. It's a bit different for many other 'personal' offences (e.g. cannabis possession) - you get a warning and then the big(ger) guns on a second/third offence.

I'm not saying they should be let off without a fine, although tbh given that the data was available to anyone who drove past with a laptop I'm sceptical about how they broke data protection laws (i.e. all info was in the public domain), but it's not entirely one-sided corporation vs individual.

That doesn't explain away TalkTalk/Tiscalli.

What's the latest there? Or just the Ofcom apathy?

Oh Ofcom acted, by writing them a strongly worded letter.

Single instances of "stealing" unsecured wifi are prosecuted:

USA:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/n...om-his-car.ars

and in the UK:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04...iving_arrests/

..but google's mass theft isn't ?!

Each of which were different from what Google did, as AFAIK they were not internetting on their Wifi, but granted under the laws mentioned they may have been illegal.

Still, if you're stupid enough to have an unsecured WiFi network in/around your house, I have no sympathy whatsoever for the owner (routers come with automatically protected networks, for goodness' sake) and disagree with the presumption that it is 'internet theft' when a) usage remains within limits prescribed by the ISP, and b) it does not affect the owner such that they notice effects resulting from it. And if you have your phone/laptop set to automatically connect to unsecured wireless networks, it would be quite possible to accidentally connect and 'steal' internet.

Quite simple, if you want anyone and everyone to be able to use your network, leave it unsecured, preferably indicated by "FREE WIFI" in capital letters as the network name. If you don't, use a simple network key that is essentially set up for you by your router.

Still yet another in a long line of examples of individuals getting the slapdown immediately and without reservation, while wealthy companies can commit virtually any crime and get away scot free.

Here's the ICO press release about this. Seems to be that the ICO investigated naff-all, it just became uncomfortably clear to them that Google had been reprimanded in other countries, had behaved the same way in the UK. This would be hard to ignore even for the hopeless ICO, so they got the world's greediest and most prolific data-miner to promise not to do data mining. Some chance. A wifi survey can be a useful thing - for e.g. measuring the channel congestion by area, using the resulting map of SSIDs to help with locative services. What I don't get is how explicit packet capture and analysis is a mistake in this context; is this believable? If it's not (and I think it isn't) then Google need to be made aware that they must comply with the law. Perhaps the ICO is the wrong body to investigate, now IANAL, but does anyone else think it might be worth a look at the Computer Misuse Act ?

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Originally Posted by miniyazz

I'm not saying they should be let off without a fine, although tbh given that the data was available to anyone who drove past with a laptop I'm sceptical about how they broke data protection laws (i.e. all info was in the public domain), but it's not entirely one-sided corporation vs individual.

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I don't know the ins and outs but we have the Commissioner saying Google's actions constitutes "a significant breach of the first principle of the Data Protection Act". So was it a significant breach or not??

It's like the Police telling everyone that this guy did a significant criminal act and the most appropriate action is to just give them a warning?? WTH.

well if the reality of the situation is they haven't done an investigation and therefore have no evidence, they cant really slap a fine on them can they?
Would only cost them money in a frivolous law suit where they would lose.