Before I was a genius, I was a drudge - Ignacy Jan Paderewski
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Rights groups Down Under grab Google
HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS in Oz have penned a letter to Google asking it to explain why its Google Earth cars have been snuffling at people's wireless networks.
The Australian Privacy Foundation's Geordie Guy and the Electronic Frontier Association's Dan Svantesson have signed a joint letter to Google.
The letter said they are aware of the criticism raised by Peter Schaar, the German federal commissioner for data protection regarding Google's collection of WiFi-related information as part of Street View image collection.
The pair said that Google's activities might breach Australian privacy law and they want to know what type of wireless network information Google is collecting, why the data is being collected and how Google intends to use, store and make available this information.
The letter can be found here. µ
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@Vlad
SSID is useless for location as you have have multiple SSID's that are the same all over the place, as far as I know they're just gathering MAC addresses as they're unique and more useful for tying to a GPS co-ordinate. The only way they become incorrect is if someone moves house and takes the router with them.
I'd assume they're adding hotspot data to their geolocation services, so that people using WiFi hotspot-based GPS with their location service get more accurate location information.
If a wireless network is broadcasting a public SSID (etc), does collection of that information constitute a privacy breach?
Tying it to a GPS coordinate?
It's available for everyone in that area to see... publishing the SSID might be bad, but using it to determine a location more accurately...