Quote:
Originally Posted by HansTWN
A company that is on the leading edge of technology, a company that is in the business of gathering our data, "inadvertently" collected user data off non-password protected WiFi networks? Now that is tough sell. Obviously it is not easy to prove they did it intentionally, which is all that matters to the law. It it really was unintentional they would have deleted the data immediately not waited for a court order. And as for penalties, you would also have to show what they did with the data. All that is nearly impossible for outsiders.
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Actually, since this was before the Privacy Commissioner in Canada (an administrative tribunal), not before a court, it didn't matter whether or not Google did it intentionally. So actually, it is somewhat telling that it was found that Google did it unintentionally, but was still sanctioned.
And the reason they couldn't delete it immediately was because they were legally obligated to report it to various country's privacy commissioners, and then had a legal obligation to preserve the date because it was evidence.