Google has fired dozens of employees for abusing private data



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Google has laid off eighty employees in the past three years for security breaches related to the misuse of company and user data, according to an internal Google document obtained by Motherboard, the tech arm of Vice.

According to Motherboard, the number of Google employees fired for such violations has increased year on year: 18 in 2018, 26 in 2019 and 36 in 2020.

LONDON, ENGLAND - AUG 09: In this photo illustration the Google logo is projected onto a man on August 09, 2017 in London, England.  Founded in 1995 by Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Google now manufactures hundreds of products used by billions of people around the world, from YouTube and Android to Smartbox and Google Search.  (Photo by Leon Neal / Getty Images)

LONDON, ENGLAND – AUG 09: In this photo the Google logo is projected onto a man on August 09, 2017 in London, England. Founded in 1995 by Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Google today manufactures hundreds of products used by billions of people around the world, from YouTube and Android to Smartbox and Google Search. (Photo by Leon Neal / Getty Images)

Via the motherboard:

The document says Google laid off 36 employees in 2020 over security concerns. Eighty-six percent of all security-related allegations against employees included mismanagement of confidential information, such as the transfer of only internal information to third parties.

Ten percent of all allegations in 2020 were about systems misuse, which may include accessing user or employee data in violation of Google’s own policies, helping others access that data, or changing or deleting it. user or employee data, depending on the document. In 2019, that figure represented 13% of all security claims.

Google laid off 26 people in 2019 and 18 in 2018 due to security incidents, the person who provided the document told Motherboard. Motherboard has granted the person anonymity to speak more candidly about Google’s issues. The document says other actions Google can take with employees who have mishandled data may include warnings, training, and coaching.

In a statement to Motherboard, a Google representative said the company was “tightly restricting[s] employee access through a number of state-of-the-art safeguards including: limiting access to user data to those necessary, requiring justification for accessing that data, multi-step review before granting access to sensitive data and monitor anomalies and access violations. “

Collecting user data has been an integral part of Google’s business model for many years. The company has been involved in several security scandals over the years, including a bug that exposed user data on its short-lived Google Plus social network in 2018 (which it initially withheld from the public), a breach spyware in its Chrome browser earlier this year. In 2019, federal regulators launched an investigation into the company’s access to detailed medical records.

Allum Bokhari is the Senior Technology Correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.

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