Google Australia will today be sent a "please explain" letter from two local privacy organisations demanding to know why the company has been collecting personal Wi-Fi network data from Australian homes alongside the images it takes with its Street View cameras.The letter comes in response to recent reports that the company has been quietly collecting Wi-Fi data around the world when taking pictures of streets and houses for its mapping service.
Street View, which has already rolled out in a number of countries including Australia, displays panoramic street-level photos taken by specially equipped vans which are also equipped with Wi-Fi receivers that scan private network signals as it drives through neighbourhoods.
The Street View photos are overlayed onto Google Maps and concerns that Wi-Fi data could potentially be used to match mobile devices to residential addresses has privacy campaigners on alert, and they claim Google has failed to explain adequately the purpose for which the company is collecting this data in Australia.
"The question is why an organisation like Google that already knows so much about individuals, that is driving around and taking photos of every street in Australia, is collecting data that could enable it to physically map that information to a physical street and presumably a physical house," asked Geordie Guy, vice-chairman of Electronic Frontiers Australia.
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