Skillern has a clean online footprint, but he has been keeping these photos inside his Gmail for safe keeping. What he didn’t know was that Google always scans for attachments and files inside Gmail for suspicious material. As soon as Google found out about this, they tipped off the Police to catch Skillern. Police took the pervert into custody after Google’s tip. Although, they did also had to get a warrant to acquire the said pictures from Google.
Surely, this it’s a good thing to see Google fighting crime and helping clean the world from perverts. But, what does this incident tell us about privacy? Does Google also snoop around our Gmail accounts as well?
Read Also: Google Working On Cleaner Gmail Interface
Surprisingly, Google haven’t broken any rules here. Apparently, by agreeing to Gmail terms of service, you give permission for Google to scan your files, including the attached pictures in your emails.
“Since 2008, we’ve used ‘hashing’ technology to tag known child sexual abuse images, allowing us to identify duplicate images which may exist elsewhere,” Google’s Jacquelline Fuller explained in a blog post. “We’re in the business of making information widely available, but there’s certain ‘information’ that should never be created or found. We can do a lot to ensure it’s not available online—and that when people try to share this disgusting content they are caught and prosecuted.”
Did this story made you trust Google even less? Let us know in the comments.
[Via: Business Insider / Google Blog / Photo - Robert Scoble]
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