Google finally admits that its Street View cars DID take emails and passwords from computers

Google Street View Car

Google was accused of spying on households yesterday after it admitted secretly copying passwords and private emails from home computers. In an astonishing invasion of privacy, it admitted entire emails, web pages and even passwords were 'mistakenly collected' by antennae on its high-tech Street View cars. Google sent a fleet of specially equipped cars around Britain in 2008, armed with 360-degree cameras to gather photographs for its Street View project.

Earlier this year the California-based firm admitted that the cars' antennae had also scanned for wireless networks, including home wi-fi, which connect millions of personal computers to the internet. Google registered the location, name and identification code of millions of networks and entered them into a database to help it sell adverts. The firm was able to record the location of every wireless router and network without alerting households because wi-fi signals are 'visible' to other internet devices, including the cars' antennae.

 

The information was only gathered from wireless networks which were not password-protected. But it means the antennae potentially harvested millions of private emails and passwords around the country. It is not known how many householders have unprotected wireless networks. 'Google is fast developing a reputation as a company that cares little for privacy or data security.' Mail Online