Google’s Chief Executive Privacy Officer Keith Enright is leaving the company after 13 years, and the tech giant has no plans to hire someone else for the role. Director of Competition Law Matthew Bye is also leaving, not to be replaced. Bye worked for Google for 15 years. This comes as Google reportedly restructures its privacy and compliance teams in the wake of legal scrutiny, according to Forbes. The publication noted collecting user data is critical to Google’s more than $307 billion annual revenue.Thousands of internal documents show Google collected children’s voice data, licence plate numbers, home addresses and car pool routes, the 404 Media reported Monday. Last week another massive leak exposed 2,500 internal documents related to the tech giant’s algorithm. In April, Google faced hearings in a case brought on by the US Department of Justice in a landmark competition trial. Google is accused of contracts with certain device manufacturers that drive users to Google search.Enright, privacy chief since 2018 and previously served as privacy counsel, was responsible for directing Google’s privacy team’s handling of data as the company underwent legal battles. He represented the tech giant in front of Congress, the Federal Trade Commission and several data commissions around the world.Washington lawmakers at the time, and in multiple instances since, expressed concern over the enormous power and influence tech giants gain by collecting personal information of American citizens. Google notified employees of Enright’s departure in mid-May. Staff told the publication they were shocked to hear the news, because the privacy chief was widely liked and respected. Google spokesperson Jenn Crider confirmed that Enright and Bye will leave their posts later this year and will not be replaced.“We regularly evolve our legal, regulatory and compliance work as we launch and run innovative services that comply with a growing number of intersecting obligations and expectations. Our latest changes will increase the number of people working on regulatory compliance across the company,” said Crider, per Forbes. “We'll continue to establish and maintain advanced privacy and data protection controls for our services, with input from our dedicated legal and product privacy teams, as well as hundreds of people across the company.”Enright, who will remain in his role as privacy chief until September, announced his departure on LinkedIn. “This will be an uncharacteristically personal post from a guy who predictably tends to keep things private,” he wrote.“After over 13 years at Google, I’m ready for a change, and will be moving on this fall, taking all that I’ve learned and trying something new.”The privacy chief testified on policies concerning user data before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, alongside representatives from Amazon and Apple in 2018. “We acknowledge that we have made mistakes in the past, from which we have learned, and improved our robust privacy program,” he testified at the time, per Forbes. Google in December settled a $5 billion lawsuit and promised to deleted billions of records collected of users’ personal information. The company was accused of tracking consumer data from Google Chrome browsers even when the person was operating in “incognito” mode. Google employees between 2013 and 2018 flagged privacy breaches. The tech giant used children’s voices for the function of a speech command on YouTube Kids, according to the 404 Media. “Estimated 1K child speech utterances was collected. Team deleted all logged speech data from the affected time period,” the leaked report said.Google Street View was caught storing licence plate numbers and using an algorithm to detect the lettering on the plates. The employee who flagged the breach wrote, “Unfortunately, the contents of licence plates are also text and, apparently, have been transcribed in many cases. As 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.”The same report showed Google compromised email addresses, geolocation information and IP addresses of one million users, including children. “This exposure has been addressed as part of the closing conditions for this acquisition. However, the data was exposed for > 1yr and could already have been harvested,” the report read.
Google’s Chief Executive Privacy Officer Keith Enright is leaving the company after 13 years, and the tech giant has no plans to hire someone else for the role. Director of Competition Law Matthew Bye is also leaving, not to be replaced. Bye worked for Google for 15 years. This comes as Google reportedly restructures its privacy and compliance teams in the wake of legal scrutiny, according to Forbes. The publication noted collecting user data is critical to Google’s more than $307 billion annual revenue.Thousands of internal documents show Google collected children’s voice data, licence plate numbers, home addresses and car pool routes, the 404 Media reported Monday. Last week another massive leak exposed 2,500 internal documents related to the tech giant’s algorithm. In April, Google faced hearings in a case brought on by the US Department of Justice in a landmark competition trial. Google is accused of contracts with certain device manufacturers that drive users to Google search.Enright, privacy chief since 2018 and previously served as privacy counsel, was responsible for directing Google’s privacy team’s handling of data as the company underwent legal battles. He represented the tech giant in front of Congress, the Federal Trade Commission and several data commissions around the world.Washington lawmakers at the time, and in multiple instances since, expressed concern over the enormous power and influence tech giants gain by collecting personal information of American citizens. Google notified employees of Enright’s departure in mid-May. Staff told the publication they were shocked to hear the news, because the privacy chief was widely liked and respected. Google spokesperson Jenn Crider confirmed that Enright and Bye will leave their posts later this year and will not be replaced.“We regularly evolve our legal, regulatory and compliance work as we launch and run innovative services that comply with a growing number of intersecting obligations and expectations. Our latest changes will increase the number of people working on regulatory compliance across the company,” said Crider, per Forbes. “We'll continue to establish and maintain advanced privacy and data protection controls for our services, with input from our dedicated legal and product privacy teams, as well as hundreds of people across the company.”Enright, who will remain in his role as privacy chief until September, announced his departure on LinkedIn. “This will be an uncharacteristically personal post from a guy who predictably tends to keep things private,” he wrote.“After over 13 years at Google, I’m ready for a change, and will be moving on this fall, taking all that I’ve learned and trying something new.”The privacy chief testified on policies concerning user data before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, alongside representatives from Amazon and Apple in 2018. “We acknowledge that we have made mistakes in the past, from which we have learned, and improved our robust privacy program,” he testified at the time, per Forbes. Google in December settled a $5 billion lawsuit and promised to deleted billions of records collected of users’ personal information. The company was accused of tracking consumer data from Google Chrome browsers even when the person was operating in “incognito” mode. Google employees between 2013 and 2018 flagged privacy breaches. The tech giant used children’s voices for the function of a speech command on YouTube Kids, according to the 404 Media. “Estimated 1K child speech utterances was collected. Team deleted all logged speech data from the affected time period,” the leaked report said.Google Street View was caught storing licence plate numbers and using an algorithm to detect the lettering on the plates. The employee who flagged the breach wrote, “Unfortunately, the contents of licence plates are also text and, apparently, have been transcribed in many cases. As 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.”The same report showed Google compromised email addresses, geolocation information and IP addresses of one million users, including children. “This exposure has been addressed as part of the closing conditions for this acquisition. However, the data was exposed for > 1yr and could already have been harvested,” the report read.
