New Delhi: After registering a Preliminary Enquiry against Google for alleged mapping of classified areas, the Central Bureau of Investigation has sought help of the Survey of India which has alleged that the Internet giant continued to ‘pollute’ the web with classified material despite being warned against it.
As the probe continues, surveyor general of India Swarna Subba Rao alleged that the Internet giant did not refrain from mentioning classified site even after having been asked not to do so.
“During Google’s Mapathon, 2013, exercise, they collected lot of classified data and we had approached them to refrain from doing so when we came to know about it,” Dr Rao said in Dehradun.
He said that instead of desisting, the Google “polluted the Internet” with the coordinates of classified locations on the map. “Google has expressed their desire to meet me at some hotel but I have been firm of a meeting in office,” he said.
The SoI, the official mapping agency of the country, is the complainant in the case. After initial probe by Delhi Police, the case was handed over to the CBI as the investigation involved a US-based company.
Google had not taken permission from SoI before organising a mapping competition in February-March 2013 in which they asked citizens to map their neighbourhoods, especially details related to hospitals and restaurants.
Alarmed by Mapathon, the SoI, India’s national survey and mapping organisation under the department of science and technology, asked Google to share its details and found that there were several coordinates with information on sensitive defence installations which are out of the public domain. The CBI has examined Google-India’s Legal Advisor Geetanjali Duggal and others so far.
