Google India, in an emailed response to MediaNama, has said that the company has taken a formal approval from the traffic department of the Bangalore Police for Google Street View, and will be working with local authorities as Street View expands to other cities; the company declined to disclose which cities it intends expand to, or offer a timeframe, only that "our intension is to cover the whole of India". We had raised issues related to capturing of WiFi information, personal information published online, and also storing of imagery related to sensitive areas, such as airports, railway stations, bus depots and crowded marketplaces, which are potential terror targets. We had earlier pointed out privacy issues related to Google Street View. A Google spokespersons responses, via email: WiFi Access Point Information & Data Collection "No information will be collected regarding WiFi networks or on the availability of any WiFi access points. The collection of WiFi data was actually unrelated to Street View, we just happened to be using the same cars. As we’ve said before, it was a mistake for us to include code in our software that collected payload data, which is why we reached out to local authorities in the relevant countries to help answer any questions they have. Based on the concerns raised, we decided that it was best to stop our Street View cars collecting WiFi network data entirely and we are not collecting such data in any Street View car drives globally. You can read more…
