GoogleGoogle polluted Internet with classified info, says Surveyor General of India

Google polluted Internet with classified info, says Surveyor General of India

Survey of India and the Central Bureau of Investigation are jointly accusing Google of ‘polluting’ the Internet with classified information through the company’s Mapathon challenge held between February 11 and March 25, 2013. The contest which takes place every year, asks participants to edit Google Maps and add geographical pointers that might be considered necessary.

It means volunteers can put in missing mapping information such as the location of hospitals, fire stations, important buildings, roads and so on. But there are downsides to letting just about anyone edit crucial data such as this; it’s reflected sharply in a recent report on The Verge about Russian authorities fiddling with a Wikipedia page about the Malaysia Airlines’ doomed flight MH17.

Google Maps

Details that need to be kept secret may leak and in the Google Mapathon case, SOI lodged a complaint against the internet giant with the Delhi Police in 2013 because the online challenge allegedly violated India’s security interests as well as the national map policy. Since the company is based in North America and investigations may have needed FBI cooperation, the case was then passed on to the CBI who has launched a preliminary inquiry against it.

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The Times of India picked up on a PTI post which says Google was asked to stop gathering sensitive data including that of the location of key defense installations while the Mapathon 2013 exercise was in progress. The company is said to have poured coordinates of classified areas not included in the maps of India, in the web. What’s more, only SOI is legally allowed to undertake ‘restricted’ category surveying and mapping, with other government, individual and private organizations being barred from doing so.

Surveyor General of India, Swarna Subba Rao, has noted that Google requested for a meeting with him in a hotel when carrying out such a conference in office is the appropriate way to go about doing it. We’re assuming Rao is implying there’s something shady going on here since he mentions insisting on an official office meeting. The Internet biggie is apparently cooperating with the CBI’s investigations and have responded to the queries presented by the agency.

We’re already in the midst of a frenzy about opposition parties bugging each each other and the US being involved in spying on important leaders in India. The mood in the country is already paranoid, so we can see why the CBI and Survey of India are strongly pursuing the case against Google letting classified mapping information into the public domain as well as collecting such data.

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