South Korea: Google violates law with 'Street View'

According to the Cyber Terror Response Center, the National Police Agency’s Internet crime unit, the conglomerate’s Street View mapping service had gathered sensitive private information from unencrypted wireless networks during the filming process.

“We succeeded in breaking the encryption behind the hard drives, and confirmed that it contained personal e-mails and text messages of people using the Wi-Fi networks,” said a police official.

This puts the Internet global conglomerate in violation of the country’s law on protection of telecommunications privacy.

Police raided its Korean branch office, Google Korea, last August and confiscated computer hard drives and paper documents.

Police have investigated about 10 company officials, all of whom have claimed that they were simply following orders from headquarters.

“We are looking to penalize whoever ordered and developed the program, but are unsure as of yet who that might be,” said a police official.

“Even after we confirm the identity of the suspect, we believe it will most likely be a U.S. citizen, and it is unclear whether the Korean Police Agency can prosecute those involved,” he said.