Google has the ability to 'court' in Korea

South Korean police yesterday (January 13) said it had concluded a multi-month investigation into Google and would suggest prosecuting the company for acts of illegally collecting personal information of hundreds of thousands of people. .

If prosecutors accept this offer, Korea will be the first country to prosecute Google among the countries investigating the controversial "Street View" service of " he finds Huge online search ".

Employees of the company drove with cameras to take pictures in more than 30 countries, to provide street panoramas to enhance the Google-based mapping service.

Google admitted, they accidentally collected personal data from unsecured Wi-Fi networks, when their employees took photos on the streets.

South Korean police said that the collected Google content includes email exchange content, online exchange messages, access codes, credit card and mobile phone information . of about 600,000 people.

Jang Suk-Hwa, in charge of the investigation of the National Cyber ​​Crime Unit, said the incident with such a large number of people involved was unprecedented.

Police said they found this data in computers confiscated in a raid of offices of the Google branch in South Korea in August 2010.

At that time, police searched Google offices in Seoul, discovered several dozen hard drives used to build online map search services. These hard drives contain email content and chats for hundreds of thousands of Wi-Fi-based personal subscribers.

In December 2010, Google had to apologize to New Zealand residents and authorities for " accidentally " collecting personal data transmitted over Wi-Fi networks during the service process. " My Street View ".

Google said it initially did not realize that its street photography vehicles inadvertently collected personal information transmitted via unencrypted Wi-Fi networks, including information. in email.

However, the giant realized this error and started working with New Zealand authorities to find a way to solve the problem.