The Australian government has opened an investigation on Sunday into whether or not Google had illegally collected private information from wireless networks, becoming the second country to formally investigate the search giant’s data from its Street View mapping service.
This new criminal investigation comes as regulators and consumer watchdogs have complained that Google has not done a good enough job of taking privacy seriously.
Google acknowledged last month that it had accidentally collected fragments of data over public Wi-Fi networks in at least 30 countries while taking pictures of neighborhoods for the Street View feature of Google Maps. Google said it learned of the problem when Germany regulators began an inquiry.
“In light of concerns having been raised by the public, my department thought there were issues of substance that were raised that require police investigation,” said the Australian attorney general, Robert McClelland.
McClelland added that the inquiry would focus on whether or not the company had breached Australia’s telecommunications interceptions act, which forbids anyone from gaining access to electronic communications data for any other reason than authorized purposes.
