South Korean Police Find Google Violated Privacy Laws

Five months ago, local police officers raided Google’s offices in South Korea, and what they found may cause quite a lot of trouble for the company. A police report’s indicated that Google illegally collected private data with its Street View cars, and criminal charges could result.

The fact that Google recorded emails and passwords sent over WiFi networks shouldn’t surprise anyone at this point; Google admitted it in October after other experts came to the same conclusion. Also, this isn’t the first time authorities said the act violated privacy laws.

Korean police aren’t too eager to just accept Google’s apology and promise to do better, however.

An unidentified police official told the Korea Herald, "We are looking to penalize whoever ordered and developed the program . . ."

That could represent a serious PR problem for Google. Having its engineers or execs identified as criminals would direct new attention to a problem that’s otherwise drifted out of the spotlight. And any convictions would obviously be even worse.

But here’s something else the police official said – something that Google’s lawyers might be celebrating: "Even after we confirm the identity of the suspect, we believe it will most likely be a U.S. citizen, and it is unclear whether the Korean Police Agency can prosecute those involved."

There are 4 Comments. Add Yours.

Adsense Publisher
January 6, 2011 at 4:14 pm

Google doesn’t look like such a good place to work at if they start arresting executives and engineers for something the company told them to do. In fact, I could see some employees being told to do something that they feel is an invasion of privacy and reporting the company to the authorities to strike a deal of immunity.

If Google claims to want the world to tell them what they want and Google just provides the software and technology for whatever it is the public wants, why do they keep on creating software and throwing it at us, essentially telling us what we should be wanting?

Is Google really talking to the public or are they talking more at the public?

If I wanted my house on Google maps, why can’t I opt in?
Why should I have to opt out?

There are reasons why you’d want your business on Google Maps, but maybe you don’t want your house on there. At least not on street views. So I don’t mind really that Google took pictures of a bunch of places, but they should have asked permission to publish them.

If Google wants us to believe they are one of the “good guys”, they really need to start showing it, instead of just talking about it.
Guest
January 6, 2011 at 4:54 pm

Ouch! So they’re taking seriously. It would be nice to know the real truth about what street view wanted to collect but I don’t think they’ll get far.
Guest
January 7, 2011 at 8:41 am

Interpol can take care of that. Doesn’t matter if it is a US citizen. Somebody needs to get prosecuted and when that happens, G. will crumble as all the nasty stuff they are doing in the open, which includes their self serving se algo. It will trigger a chain of subpoenas.

G. is a cesspool. It will be a big trial, subpoenaing executives, etc. in South Korea. Again, somebody needs to get prosecuted for this. G. thinks they can do whatever they want and then apologize for it or pay their way out.
Guest
January 7, 2011 at 8:54 am

Pretty soon you will start hearing about leaks, Wikileaks style. Nobody wants to go to prison. I’m sure there are a lot of employees that were instructed to do many things that “could” be illegal. There is no doubt many wrong things are happening in the inside. They think they are invincible.