A federal judge in Portland, Ore. has ordered Google to retain the payload data its Street View cars obtained from unsecured WiFi networks. Additionally, U.S. District Court Judge Michael Mosman
ordered Google to provide copies of the hard drives to the court.
For now, Google will retain the encryption key, but Mosman left open the possibility that the information will be disclosed.
"Access to the data on the source hard drive retained by Google will be determined in the normal course of discovery -- with the clones lodged with the court available should something happen to that
hard drive, or if plaintiffs otherwise make a showing to the court that data from a cloned hard drive should be accessed," the order states.
Mosman is presiding over a potential class-action lawsuit filed by two Web users who allege that Google violated federal wiretap laws
by capturing their personal data.