Google has balked at requests from regulators to surrender Internet data and fragments of e-mail messages that it collected from unsecured home wireless networks, saying it needed time to resolve legal issues.
In Germany, Google said it was not able to fully comply with the Hamburg data protection supervisor’s deadline of Thursday to hand over data the company had collected — inadvertently, it said — while roving cars were compiling its Street View photo map archive.
The company implied that German privacy laws were preventing it from turning over the information, even to a government agency.
“As granting access to payload data creates legal challenges in Germany, which we need to review, we are continuing to discuss the appropriate legal and logistical process for making the data available,” Peter Barron, a Google spokesman in London, said in a statement. “We hope, given more time, to be able to resolve this difficult issue.”
The Hamburg data protection supervisor, Johannes Caspar, expressed his disappointment.
While prosecutors in Hamburg, where Google has its German headquarters, have opened a criminal investigation into the issue, Caspar said the state prosecutor, Lutz von Selle, had assured him that complying with the request to hand over the data would not cause additional legal problems for Google.
A refusal to comply with the privacy agency’s requests for information could result in a fine of up to 50,000 euros (US$61,000), though Caspar declined to say whether he would immediately push for such a sanction.
“We will have to show them our weapons, which are not very heavy in this case,” he said.
Caspar said Google had cooperated partly with his office, providing “relevant answers” about how its Street View driving operations had been organized, among other things. The company also agreed to show investigators the software that was used to gather the data.
“We will only believe what we see,” Caspar said.
Meanwhile, the privacy commissioner in Hong Kong, Roderick Woo (吳斌), threatened unspecified sanctions after Google did not respond to his request to inspect data collected in the territory by the roving cars. Woo said Google had ignored a deadline on Monday to turn over the information.
“I am dismayed by Google’s apparent lack of sincerity in its handling of this matter,” Woo said in a statement. “I do not see that Google is taking the matter seriously enough. Unless some remedial measures are taken by Google promptly, I shall have to consider escalating the situation and resort to more assertive action.”
A Google representative in Hong Kong could not be reached on Thursday for comment.
The company has said that its cars had collected 600 gigabytes of “fragmentary data” from unsecured Wi-Fi networks in 33 countries and Hong Kong.
It has declined to describe the data in more detail and says it was gathered inadvertently because of a programming error.
Although the fines and administrative sanctions in privacy cases tend to be limited, one privacy expert said Google’s lack of compliance with regulators’ requests could damage its reputation.
“Google’s refusal to hand over the data will be seen as a declaration of war by European regulators,” said Simon Davies, the director of Privacy International, a London organization representing data protection groups in 40 countries. “This is about sovereignty and a country’s right to determine on its citizens’ behalf what is right and what is wrong.”
Google, based in Mountain View, California, has offered to destroy the data, but has not allowed regulators to see and verify what it collected. Google has destroyed data collected in Denmark, Ireland and Austria at the request of local regulators.
However, eight other European countries — Belgium, Britain, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland — have asked Google to retain data collected in those nations, which may be used as evidence in future legal proceedings.
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
STILL COMMITTED: The US opposes any forced change to the ‘status quo’ in the Strait, but also does not seek conflict, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US President Donald Trump’s administration released US$5.3 billion in previously frozen foreign aid, including US$870 million in security exemptions for programs in Taiwan, a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters showed. Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has said that all foreign assistance must align with Trump’s “America First” priorities, issued waivers late last month on military aid to Israel and Egypt, the
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
France’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and accompanying warships were in the Philippines yesterday after holding combat drills with Philippine forces in the disputed South China Sea in a show of firepower that would likely antagonize China. The Charles de Gaulle on Friday docked at Subic Bay, a former US naval base northwest of Manila, for a break after more than two months of deployment in the Indo-Pacific region. The French carrier engaged with security allies for contingency readiness and to promote regional security, including with Philippine forces, navy ships and fighter jets. They held anti-submarine warfare drills and aerial combat training on Friday in
RSS