Google has filed a request to have the US Supreme Court to hear and rule on the legality of the company’s sniffing of unencrypted Wi-Fi traffic. You likely recall the scandal that surfaced a couple years ago where the Google Street View vehicles were found to also be capturing small bits of internet traffic from unsecured wireless routers in the neighborhoods they were driving through. The vehicles were gathering info on Wi-Fi to help improve their geolocation services, and the data gathering was part of one Google engineer’s ’20% time project.’
According to Google, this project went into production after it slipped through the cracks of the legal team, unintentionally. They also offered to destroy the data that was collected, which it had not yet used in any way.
Despite their willingness to dispose of the data, and discontinue the data collection efforts, Google believes that the capturing of unencrypted Wi-Fi data is not wiretapping, nor is it illegal. The Justice Department and the FCC have both agreed with Google, clearing the company of any wrongdoing. The US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, however, ruled against Google in several class action lawsuits, which were combined together. These class action lawsuits are what Google is seeking the Supreme Court’s opinion for.
Google is arguing that they aren’t in violation of the wiretap act because the unencrypted data fits into the exception in the law for ‘electronic communication that is readily accessible to the general public.’ Indeed, Wi-Fi data that is not encrypted can be intercepted by anyone in the area with very easy to use and inexpensive equipment, so Google may have a case here.
The problem, however, is that if Google wins this case, it will essentially make it legal for criminals to perform this type of activity as well. Of course, once the criminals gather data, they may use it for illegal activities, but having the snooping itself being legal will make it more difficult to catch them.
At this time, Google is still waiting for a response from the Supreme Court on whether or not they will rule on the legality of this type of activity.
