A collection of leaked internal Google privacy cases provides a rare glimpse into the company\u2019s volume and handling of breaches, accidents and other incidents. 404 Media<\/em><\/a> obtained and pored through the database, which covers thousands of internally flagged privacy and security issues from 2013 to 2018.<\/p>\n Google verified the trove\u2019s authenticity with Engadget but claimed some of the reports were related to third-party services or didn\u2019t end up being cause for concern. \u201cAt Google employees can quickly flag potential product issues for review by the relevant teams,\u201d a company spokesperson wrote to Engadget. \u201cWhen an employee submits the flag they suggest the priority level to the reviewer. The reports obtained by 404 are from over six years ago and are examples of these flags \u2014 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.\u201d<\/p>\n 404 Media<\/em> writes that, when taken on an individual level, many cases only impacted a few people or were fixed quickly. \u201cTaken 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\u2019s lives,\u201d 404 Media<\/em>\u2019s Joseph Cox wrote.<\/p>\n Examples include a potential security issue where a government client of a Google cloud service had its sensitive data accidentally transitioned to a consumer-level product. Google\u2019s internal report added that, as a consequence, a US-based location for the data was \u201cno longer guaranteed for this customer,\u201d according to the report.<\/p>\n In 2016, another case flagged a glitch in Google Street View, where a filter in the service\u2019s transcription software designed to omit captured license plate numbers failed to do its job. \u201cAs a result, our database of objects detected from Street View now inadvertently contains a database of geolocated license plate numbers and license plate number fragments,\u201d the report acquired by 404 Media<\/em> details. (Oops!) That report said the data was purged.<\/p>\n Another incident highlighted a case where a bug in a Google speech service accidentally captured and logged an estimated 1,000 hours of children\u2019s speech data for about an hour. That case report claimed the team deleted all of the data.<\/p>\n Other cases in the database range from \u201ca person\u201d modifying customer accounts on Google\u2019s ad platform to manipulate affiliate tracking codes to YouTube recommending videos based on users\u2019 deleted watch histories. One report even highlights how a Google employee (unintentionally, according to the report) accessed Nintendo\u2019s private YouTube videos and leaked info ahead of the video game company\u2019s announcements.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n