Google Engineers On Wifi Data Collection: “Don’t Look At Me”

Denials Over Google Street View via the New York Times reports on some of the Google Street View engineers declarations when it came to the Wifi data collection done by Google’s Street View project.

Reading those declarations you see engineers stating “it was not part of my duties” to review that aspect of the project. You have others saying that they had “no recollection of reviewing the Wi-Fi project design document.” Another engineer said, “I am aware there was a design document prepared for the Wi-Fi collection, but I do not recall reading it.”

Reading the statements, it looks like these engineers are basically saying, don’t look at me when it comes to this part of the project. All we worked on when it came to the Street View project was photographing streets, not the data collection. None go as far as to say they were not aware of wifi collection happening but they do say they didn’t review that aspect of the project, nor did they care to do so as it was not part of their job.

The engineer specifically responsible for writing the code for the data collection did declare that he “specifically told two engineers working on the project, including a senior manager, about collecting payload data.” But this project was done during this employees 20% time and thus a side project that other employees might not be aware of or care about.

A Google spokesperson told the New York Times there was “clearly there was a process breakdown.”

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• Google Ends Street View WiFi Data Collection, May Now Need Other Sources For Location
• Google Stops WiFi Collecting Street View Cars After Privacy Concerns
• Sergey Brin On Google’s Wifi Data Collection: “We Screwed Up”
• Belgium Launches Investigation Of Google WiFi Data Collection