Prying Google seen as a risk

By RICHARD PAMATATAU

Google, the omnivorous search engine with a silly name, is gobbling images and information from websites as it transforms internet use.

Stephanie Perrin, principal of Montreal-based Digital Discretion, believes Google is a threat to personal privacy because it harvests images and information to serve up to anyone with a computer and internet access.

People might be "googling" for shopping tips or out-of-print books, she said, but they were also prowling for information, pictures and associations exposed by a search engine.

This was partly an erosion of privacy rights, making individuals a rank on a search engine list.

Perrin, the fomer chief privacy officer of the Canadian privacy protection start-up Zero-Knowledge Systems, was in Auckland this week for a workshop with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner.

She helped to develop Canada's privacy and cryptography policies and, as director of privacy policy for Industry Canada's Electronic Commerce Task Force, led the drive behind the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, which was passed in 2001.

"Googling people might be fun for some, but the world has to think about the implications of the data and how it can be used,"she said.

"The search engines do not discriminate between good and bad information. They just harvest and present and anything is up for grabs.

"It's open slather."

An Auckland lawyer and triathlete, who wishes to remain anonymous, told the Herald he was shocked to see his corporate picture turn up in a forum where he writes about hi-fi equipment under a nickname.

"I once mentioned law and triathlon and the next day my picture was posted with comments about my lack of hair and what I would look like out of a suit in racing kit," he said.

"The forum is private so I knew who posted my picture but it has made me think about so-called anonymity and how search engines work."

Perrin said that was only one example of digital intrusion, where the right associations were used to hunt people down and "in this case it was fun".

But "imagine if someone has relocated because of a bad relationship, and the former partner stalks him or her".

Image management was critical, she said, because once placed on the net the images were there forever. All images were up for grabs whether on an internet diary, a corporate website or even a dating site.

People using the internet to meet a partner must be aware that pictures they used, especially if they were intimate, might be used against them later.

With the net and a search engine, it was easy for people's intimate pictures to end up in a co-worker's email or - worse - with the boss.

Parents also needed to be wary of how their children's pictures were used. "What might be an innocent picture from a sports or school site can be stolen and misused."

Perrin said Google's dominance might spawn other problems as its influence on e-commerce grew.

According to internet market research firm COM Score Networks, Google grabbed 32 per cent of about four billion US searches in May, ahead of rival Yahoo (25 per cent), AOL Time Warner (19 per cent) and MSN (15 per cent).

Perrin said it was likely many tiers of citizenship would evolve based on e-marketing, search engines and databases - not too unlike the world presented in the futuristic film Minority Report, where the retina is the unique identifier and generates direct marketing in a shopping mall.

Already networked databases and "follow-the-sun call centres" allowed information to flow round the world 24 hours a day.

She said that presented a threat when companies moved data-processing to low-cost economies.

What guarantees, she asked, were there that a privacy policy on account information would be enforced when Third World workers could get $60 a head for a person's details?

Auckland privacy lawyer and part-time university lecturer Tim McBride said the world lost the privacy battle some time ago.

The law was not keeping pace with the technology and perhaps it was time to rely on technology itself to protect privacy, he said.

How did you arrive at a remedy for a person whose picture was taken from a public domain and misused, when it was hard to identify or quantify the harm?

Google spokeswoman Debbie Frost said the company viewed privacy seriously. Although it did not have a chief privacy officer, there was a list of protocols on its site.

Perrin said people had to take extreme care of their personal information and understand that the internet was an information open house.

Web watching

What the web sees - big brother in the hands of the masses.

* Find out a bit more about yourself.

Go to Google, or Ask Jeeves, or SearchNZ. Type your name into the search box and wait for the results.

* See if your image can be found.

Go to Google and then select the images icon. Click on it and then enter your name.

* See if your friends are vain.

Go to Hot or Not. Then use the tool bar to select the category or age group that interests you.

* See who around the office is looking for love.

Go to NZ Dating. You'll need to join up, which is free, and then you'll have total access to how many people are marketing themselves as potential partners.

* Google's privacy policy.

* Some privacy sites:

Privacy Commissioner NZ

Private Citizen

Google Watch

SurfSecret Software