Illustration (doc. Reuters)

Collection of Personal Data without Permission, Google was Fined USD 11 Million

California, USA - One of the biggest search engine machines, Google, is fined USD 11 million or around IDR 153 billion as the result of 227 cases of personal data collections and violations and age discrimination on the internet. Google has also been sued for the "Wi-Spy" case that took Wi-Fi data from homes that was not encrypted, identifiable, and other personal data without any permission.

It is reported that the data was taken from the car used for the Google Street View mapping project, as they were accused of collecting personal data without the users’ permission from their homes’ Wi-Fi information. However, ZDNet said that Google has agreed to delete the personal data and will improve their privacy settings.

Google is also reported to submit information by collecting data on minors below 13 years old using the video streaming platform, YouTube. The investigation found that Google and YouTube violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) as they failed to protect children adequately and they had collected data on the children and target them with personalized ads for the data collected.

According to Engadget, in 2015, an American named Robert Health reported the issue about age discrimination when he was called by the company to do a job interview. He stated that one recruiter said that Heath was one of the great candidates and qualified.

However, during the interview, the interviewer assumed the word "byte" which means eight bits, which is an age bias. This is related to a computer system "bytes" which have an older meaning between six to 40 bits, making him uncomfortable.

Through this case, Google will do improvement for their system, specifically to detect violations or misuse of data. However, it is advised to be careful in using the internet and not make sure to always log-out and turn off the Wi-Fi every time the users have done using it.

Source: https://www.cnnindonesia.com/teknologi/20190723123046-185-414646/banyak-pelanggaran-data-pribadi-google-akan-didenda-rp153-m