A group of attorneys general have decided to go ahead with a multi-state investigation of the Google Streets View project after it was revealed that the cars it uses to capture the images were also capturing data from people’s home and business wireless networks. The capturing was done in 30 countries and the government of France says that it included people’s passwords and email.

Google says they were capturing the data “inadvertently” and that the quality of the data was poor because the cars were moving.

Richard Blumenthal, AG for Connecticut, is leading the investigation.

“Street View cannot mean Complete View — invading home and business computer networks and vacuuming up personal information and communications. Consumers have a right and a need to know what personal information — which could include emails, web browsing and passwords — Google may have collected, how and why. Google must come clean, explaining how and why it intercepted and saved private information broadcast over personal and business wireless networks.”

Attorney General To Lead Multistate Investigation Of Google’s Unauthorized Collection Of Data Broadcast Over WiFi Networks [CT]
French regulators: Google snagged passwords, e-mail [CNet]

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