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AFP yet to probe Google over Wi-Fi

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) is yet to conduct a formal investigation into Google over its Wi-Fi bungle, one month after it was referred for investigation by the attorney-general.
Written by Ben Grubb, Contributor

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) is yet to conduct a formal investigation into Google over its Wi-Fi bungle, one month after it was referred for investigation by the attorney-general.

Search giant Google's "Street View" cars inadvertently collected personal data of people who didn't encrypt their Wi-Fi.

Attorney-General Robert McClelland said early last month in Melbourne that on 4 June his department had referred the matter to the AFP for investigation. The AFP said yesterday that it had not yet investigated the matter and that it remained "under evaluation".

"The matter remains under evaluation and we have been liaising with appropriate organisations including the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and the Attorney-General's Department in relation to this matter," the AFP said. "It is not appropriate to comment further."

In May, Google said that it had discovered it had accumulated about 600 gigabytes of data transmitted over public Wi-Fi networks in more than 30 countries.

The company said that it had not used the data and that none of the information had appeared in the company's search engine or other services.

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