Tuesday 7 October 2014

Administrative Order Against Google For Illegal Data Collection

In Germany the Hamburg Commissioner of Data Protection and Freedom of Information issued an administrative order against Google Inc. to remedy violations against Telemedia and Data protection law by collecting and combining user data outside the legal framework.

The Commissioner argues that currently it is possible for Google to create a meaningful and almost comprehensive personal record of users by combining the collected data of different single services being used, e.g.
• to compile detailed travel profiles by evaluating location data,
• to detect specific interests and preferences by evaluating search engine use, 
• to assess the user’s social and financial status, their whereabouts and many other of their
  habits by 
analysing the collected data and
• to infer information such as friend relationships, sexual orientation and relationship status.

Google is ordered to take the necessary technical and organisational measures to guarantee that their users can decide if and to what extent their data is used for profiling. This step has been aligned with various other EU countries which take similar measures against Google Inc. under their local law.

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