"Google has agreed *TO* delete the slurped Wi-Fi data..."
Why the £^(& do they still have it?!?
Google has agreed to delete the slurped Wi-Fi data its Street View spymobiles "inadvertently collected" as they prowled the UK's highways and byways. The Information Commissioner's Office has announced that Google has also "signed a commitment to improve data handling", and faces an ICO audit of its "internal privacy structure …
"had mistakenly collected payload data, likely to include a very limited quantity of emails, URLs and passwords"
Well that's a very interesting redefinition of the word "mistakenly" (not to mention a very strange definition of limited). They spent every day for years systematically collecting and storing as much wifi data as they could get from around the world and they want us to believe that's mistakenly ... WTF!
I also don't see any legal action, not even a fine. Yet they want to call that a "significant achievement"?! … plus it took them months more than other countries to even start looking into all this. Yet this is the best they can do!
A significant achievement my arse. I want to know how much this consistently useless quango is costing us. It would also be very interesting to know how much their boss is paid as well. :(
"Google’s purpose had been to identify Wi-Fi networks and to map their approximate location using the GPS co-ordinates of the GSV car when the radio signal was received. The aim was to build and improve the geo-location database for location-based mobile applications."
Never mind slurping URLs and passwords... why the hell do they want to map WiFi networks for geo-location? I mean, besides making it easier for them to shove advertising at us.
load google maps on a wifi-enabled computer (using chrome or firefox, no idea if IE supports it)... click the funny circle in a square button above the zoom slider thing... that's why
how many people have a GPS receiver in their computer? how many have wifi? it's not as good and doesn't work everywhere but it's better than nothing - there are other sites with similar databases, but if you've got a fleet of cars covering pretty much every road in the country then while you're at it you might as well build your own more accurate more up to date database that you won't have to pay someone else for access to...
Because they will be able to, in the absence of GPS (signal or device), give you pretty accurate location info. This can mean 1) you can save battery by leaving GPS off if you do not need the super accuracy of GPS but find cell tower triangulation not accurate enough 2) you can use location services on a device that only has wifi
When will this useless department grow a pair and start making examples of organizations who flout the law?
Never mind warnings, let's see some hefty fines* and jail time.
* Fines should not be applied in cases where government departments have done wrong, since the taxpayers would shoulder the burden. The options should be loss of job and/or jail. That'd sort the bastards out PDQ.