Google will not be prosecuted for Street View Wi-Fi sniffing in Germany
The public prosecutor in Hamburg has decided not to start a criminal investigation into the way Googles' Street View cars gathered data from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks in Germany, the lawyer who requested the inquiry said Thursday.
15 Google Streetview and Earth mysteries
In 2010 Google acknowledged that its Street View cars collected data such as MAC addresses and SSIDs (service set identifiers) as well as personal payload data from Wi-Fi networks. Payload data can include email, passwords and medical data. This prompted German lawyer Jens Ferner to request the public prosecutor in Hamburg to start a formal criminal investigation into the matter.
