Google released an update on their blog last week stating that they accidentally collected personal data while performing street view sweeps. The statement was released after an internal review of the data collected, due to a request from the DPA (Data Protection Authority) in Hamburg, Germany.
Although this practice is used by several other companies that provide WiFi location based services, they typically only store the SSID’s in a database with their GPS positions to provide WiFi triangulation services. The internal review, however, found that the data collected was not only mapping WiFi SSID’s, it was also recording a portion of the data that was being transmitted from non-password protected open WiFi routers. (via Google)
