“If you do not want anyone to know what you’re doing, you probably should not be doing it in the first place…” (Google CEO -Schmidt)

When confronted with possible privacy violations such as data logging on the Internet, a common response in society is, “I’ve got nothing to hide.” Ever since the September 11 attacks, governments gather information under the motto that it is it’s duty to detect suspicious behaviour in order to secure state’s safety. Previous statements feed the debate about privacy concerns. In this weblog the concept privacy will be regarded as “the indefeasible right of an individual to control the ways in which personal information is obtained, processed, distributed, shared and used by any other entity” (Gritzalis, 2004). This weblog will specifically focus on data collection by Google and the safety of this data. First, Google’s perception of privacy will be addressed. Secondly, three privacy incidents regarding Google will be discussed. The aim of this blog is to make its readers aware of possible threads to personal information published on the web. It is important to acknowledge how online institutions such as Google deal with your right to privacy. Besides foregoing citation of the title of this blog, Google CEO Eric Schmidt has stated “if you really need privacy, the reality is that search engines –including Google– do retain this information for some time and it’s important that we are all subject … to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all information could be made available to the authorities” (The Huffington Post, 2009). Only a small percentage of Internet users are aware of the fact that under existing U.S. law, Google can be obliged to hand over all collected data to the U.S. Government (BBC, 2007). For this reason it is of great importance to understand how Google perceives the concept of privacy and its reasoning behind it. Google’s stated mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” (Google, 2011). Google is not one of many innumerable search engines: it is the most important and most frequently used search tool. Billions of searches are typed in everyday and this process causes problems. The first concern consists out of the resulting dangers and privacy allegations of having a centrally located, broadly popular data depot of billions of Internet users’ searches. What might happen if this depot is attacked? How is this depot protected? By who? People might be able to link your personal information to, for instance, a member of Al-Qaeda and this might get you into trouble. A second case of privacy concern was raised when Google Street View was launched and inappropriate pictures of people got published on the web. For instance, photographs of men entering strip clubs or women leaving abortion clinics did suddenly appear online, when typing in a certain address on Google Maps. While Google upholds the statement that all photographs were conducted in public, it is problematic how far one can go with publishing private pictures (Mills, 2007). A third incident regarding Google’s privacy issues was revealed in May 2010 when it was revealed that Google had collected and stored data from unencrypted Wi-Fi connections as part of Street View (Farrell, 2010). Data shows “that the system used for Wi-Fi collection intentionally separated out unencrypted content of communications and systematically wrote this data to hard drives” (BBC, 2010). Can we trust institutions to which we trust so much personal data, while they do not take our privacy as their most important concern? Data needs to be provided to make people aware to make weighed choices to protect their privacy of the stories they post on the Internet. Many people will, most likely, end posting personal stories online and thus avoid building online dossiers, if they would experience the harms of privacy violations. A program, which offers Internet users privacy protection while preserving free speech, must be designed, preferably today than tomorrow.

References

BBC. (2007) Google admits wi-fi data collection blunder. Available from  [Accessed on 22 March 2011] 

BBC. (2010) Google ranked ‘worst’ on privacy. Available from  [Accessed on 21 March 2011] 

Farrell, N. (2010) Google admits it sniffed out people’s data. Available from  [Accessed on 21 March 2011] 

Google. (2011) About Google > Corporate Information. Available from  [Accessed on 21 March 2011] 

Gritzalis, S. (2004) Enhancing Web Privacy and Anonymity in the Digital Era. Information Management and Computer Security, Vol.12, No.3, pp.255-288, Emerald, Print. 

The Huffington Post. (2009) Google CEO On Privacy (Video). Available from  [Accessed on 21 March 2011] 

Mills, E. (2007) Google’s street-level maps raising privacy concerns. Available from  [Accessed on 21 March 2011]