Google Data Grab Raises Ire

The company with a global eye is making new enemies on the local level.

News that Google has been collecting personal WiFi data as part of its Street View program has raised the hackles of lawmakers from Germany to Georgetown, as District of Columbia Council Member Jim Graham added his name to the list of legislators calling for greater oversight of the company.

In a Washington Post report, he called the data breach a “big brother-like invasion of privacy” and sought to have the company investigated for possible antitrust law violations. Graham joins Peter Schaar, Germany's federal commissioner for data protection and freedom of information, who remains skeptical of the company’s claims that it collected the data by mistake.

"It acquired billions of records unintentionally, without anyone in the company noticing, not even Google's internal data protection officials, who were still defending the company's practices two weeks ago," he told the TG Daily Web site.

Google’s Street View is a technology featured in Google Maps and Google Earth that provides panoramic views of many streets in cities around the world.  The Street View images are taken by a fleet of cars with specially mounted cameras and other high-tech equipment.

TG Daily reported that Google has gathered as much as 600GB of data from unprotected Wifi networks in more than 30 countries, including the Web sites people were viewing and the contents of emails.

The European Union is currently reviewing the 27-nation bloc's data protection rules in the context of the Google data security breach, Euractiv.Com reported.