A leaked internal Google database has shed some light on the tech giant's dubious security practices and policies about collecting and storing the personal data of users.
The database revealed thousands of reports filed by Google employees about different incidents, from exposed email addresses to recordings of children's voices.
While Google insists that these reported events would only affect a handful of users, the wide range of the incidents suggests something alarming: The company isn't as trustworthy despite its reputation as one of the most impactful companies in the world, especially concerning its work involving online privacy and security. (Related: Google sued over coronavirus contact tracing apps that may expose users to data breach.)
The now-public Google database covers the period between 2013 and 2018. According to data obtained by 404 Media, the reports include privacy and security issues that Google employees reported internally, These include:
- Issues with Google’s own products or data collection practices.
- Vulnerabilities in third-party vendors that Google uses.
- Mistakes made by Google staff, contractors, or others who have impacted Google systems or data.
The incidents vary, from one errant email containing some personally identifiable information and even upcoming raids on Google offices.
Google transcribed license plates from Street View and exposed email addresses of users
In a case from 2016, one Google employee reported that Google Street View’s systems were transcribing and storing license plate numbers from photographs. The employee said Google uses an algorithm to detect text in Street View imagery.
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However, the contents of license plates are also text so they were also "transcribed in many cases." Because of this, the database of objects detected from Street View now unintentionally includes "a database of geolocated license plate numbers and license plate number fragments."
The Google employee claimed that this was accidental since the system that transcribes the text should have been avoiding imagery identified by the license plate detectors. However, for unknown reasons, it wasn't.
According to the report, the data from license plates has been purged.
Another incident involved the leak of more than one million users’ email addresses from a company that Google acquired. The report revealed that data for Socratic.org could be viewed on the page source of the company’s website.
They also believe that the geolocation information and IP addresses of users was leaked. The leak even affected children.
According to the report, while the leak was already resolved "as part of the closing conditions for this acquisition," the data was exposed for users younger than one "could already have been harvested."
Google has endangered data involving children
A third report detailed how a Google speech service logged all audio, including an estimated 1,000 children's speech data, for at least one hour. The report also revealed that a team has "deleted all logged speech data from the affected time period."
There were also cases where the reports themselves claimed that the issue had been resolved. After 404 Media shared the identifying codes of at least 30 incidents with Google, the company insisted that all of them were resolved at the time.
Other incidents classified as high priority or are considered notable in the database include:
- The global security team warned that it was anticipating a dawn raid of a Google office in Jakarta in April 2017. Something similar also occurred in September 2016.
- Waze carpool's feature leaked the trips and home addresses of several users.
- One person modified customer accounts on AdWords (the name for Google’s ad platform at the time) to manipulate affiliate tracking codes on ads.
- One Google employee accessed private videos in Nintendo’s YouTube account and leaked information before Nintendo’s planned announcements. According to an internal interview, the activity was "non-intentional."
- Sabre, a travel agent used by Google, was compromised. The incident leaked Google employee payment information.
- When iOS users of Google Drive or Docs set access controls on a file as "Anyone with the link," Google treated it as a "Public" link instead.
- YouTube made recommendations based on videos users had already deleted from their watch history. This was against YouTube’s policy.
- A YouTube blurring feature exposed uncensored versions of pictures.
- YouTube videos uploaded as unlisted or private could still appear publicly available for a short time.
- A glitch in Android's keyboard meant that children were pressing the microphone button, with Google recording audio from children as part of the launch of the YouTube Kids app.
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Watch this episode of "Brighteon Conversations" as Health Ranger Mike Adams talks to attorney Jeffrey Garber and tech censorship expert Jason Fyk about the historic lawsuit against Google, Facebook, Twitter and the U.S. government.
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