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Leaked Google database reveals its secret privacy and security failures

A collection of leaked Google privacy cases provides a rare glimpse into the company’s volume and handling of breaches, accidents and other incidents. The database, obtained and detailed by 404 Media, covers thousands of internally flagged privacy and security issues from 2013 to 2018.

“Taken as a whole, though, the internal database shows how one of the most powerful and important companies in the world manages, and often mismanages, a staggering amount of personal, sensitive data on people’s lives,” 404 Media ’s Joseph Cox wrote. In 2016, another case flagged a glitch in Google Street View, where a filter in the service’s transcription software designed to omit captured license plate numbers failed to do its job. Other cases in the database range from “a person” modifying customer accounts on Google’s ad platform to manipulate affiliate tracking codes to YouTube recommending videos based on users’ deleted watch histories.

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