Australian Police Drop Google WiFi Investigation

Saying it’s unlikely to get a conviction, the Australian Federal Police has given up its six-month investigation of Google’s collection of personal data over unsecure WiFi networks.

In a statement issued Friday, the AFP says that Google’s activities “may have” broken the law, but that pursuing the matter further doesn’t make sense.

Evidence exists to suggest that the potential breach of the TIA by Google was inadvertent. Coupled with the difficulty of gathering sufficient evidence required for an examination of potential breaches, the AFP has concluded that it would not be an efficient and effective use of the AFP’s resources to pursue this matter any further. The likelihood of a successful criminal prosecution in this matter is considered to be low.

As we reported in Google Maps Privacy: The Street View & Wifi Scorecard, Australia’s privacy commissioner has previously ruled that Google broke the law, but decided against issuing penalties.

Google has maintained that the data collection was inadvertent.