A newly leaked internal database has revealed thousands of previously unknown privacy incidents at Google over the past six years. This information, first reported by tech outlet 404 Media, highlights a range of privacy issues affecting a broad user base, including children, car owners, and even video-game giant Nintendo.
The authenticity of the leaked database was confirmed by Google to Engadget. However, Google stated that many of these incidents were related to third-party services or were not significant concerns. "At Google, employees can quickly flag potential product issues for review by the relevant teams. The reports obtained by 404 are from over six years ago and are examples of these flags — every one was reviewed and resolved at that time. In some cases, these employee flags turned out not to be issues at all or were issues that employees found in third party services," a company spokesperson explained.
Despite some incidents being quickly fixed or affecting only a few individuals, 404 Media’s Joseph Cox noted that the database reveals significant mismanagement of personal, sensitive data by one of the world's most powerful companies.
One notable incident involved a potential security issue where a government client’s sensitive data was accidentally transitioned from a Google cloud service to a consumer-level product. As a result, the US-based location for the data was no longer guaranteed for the client.
In another case from 2016, a glitch in Google Street View’s transcription software failed to omit license plate numbers, resulting in a database containing geolocated license plate numbers. This data was later purged.
Another incident involved a bug in a Google speech service that accidentally captured and logged approximately 1,000 hours of children’s speech data for about an hour. The report stated that all the data was deleted.
Additional reports highlighted various other issues, such as manipulation of customer accounts on Google’s ad platform, YouTube recommendations based on deleted watch histories, and a Google employee accidentally leaking Nintendo’s private YouTube videos.
Waze, acquired by Google in 2013, also had a carpool feature that leaked users' trips and home addresses.
Google's internal challenges were further underscored by another recent leak of 2,500 documents, revealing discrepancies between the company’s public statements and internal views on search result rankings.
These revelations raise concerns about Google's handling of user data and the effectiveness of its privacy safeguards, prompting calls for increased transparency and accountability from the tech giant.
