Having an online account means that people must be willing to provide all if not some of their information to the company that provides the online service.
And among the few large tech companies that thrive on the web, mobile and beyond, Google is among the largest of them all. And here, the company is bloated with limitless supply of information it gathers 24/7 from its users around the world.
If that is not concerning, it is allegedly known that Google employees have some degree of access to those massive trove of information.
According to a report, Google was found to have fired eighty employees in the last three years for security violations related to the misuse of company data and user data.
That, according to an internal Google document obtained by Vice’s tech news vertical, Motherboard.
It is said that the number of Google employees fired for such violations has risen year-on-year.
The document says that Google fired 18 people in 2018, 26 in 2019, and 36 in 2020.
10% of all allegations in 2020 concerned misuse of systems, which can include accessing user or employee data in violation of Google’s own policies, helping others to access that data, or modifying or deleting user or employee data, according to the document. In 2019, that figure was 13% of all security allegations.
And in 2018, Google also fired a number of its employees because of similar security incidents.
86% of all security-related allegations against employees included mishandling of confidential information, such as the transfer of internal-only information to outside parties.
According to a Google representative who wish to remain anonymous to speak more candidly about Google issues, "the instances referred to mostly relate to inappropriate access to, or misuse of, proprietary and sensitive Google corporate information or IP.”
The person explained that employees are limited in how much user data they can access and that a review system is in place to avoid sensitive data being unlocked, saying that the company “tightly restrict[s] employee access through a number of industry leading safeguards, including: limiting access to user data to necessary individuals, requiring a justification to access such data, multi-stage review before access is granted to sensitive data, and monitoring for access anomalies and violations.”
“The number of violations, whether deliberate or inadvertent, is consistently low,” the Google spokesperson said. “Every employee gets training annually, we investigate all allegations, and violations result in corrective action up to and including termination.
“We are transparent in publicizing the number and outcome of our investigations to our employees and have strict processes in place to secure customer and user data from any internal or external threats,” the spokesperson added.
The collection of user data has been an integral component of Google’s business model for many years.
While Google has measures in place to ensure that its employees cannot easily and readily access user data, Google cannot guarantee that its employees won't have a workaround to bypass its measures.
And this document here, shows that the search giant’s employees managed to use their access to steal, leak or mishandle confidential data.
It should be noted that the employees who engage in data misuse were reportedly warned, trained and coached before they were fired.
"Every employee gets training annually, we investigate all allegations, and violations result in corrective action up to and including termination," explained the Google spokesperson. "We are transparent in publicizing the number and outcome of our investigations and have strict processes in place to secure customer and user data from any internal or external threats."
Google in letting them go, means that Google has been dealing with this issue repeatedly.
Google is not the only tech company dealing with this kind of problem, as others, like Facebook, Snapchat and more, were also experiencing similar employee issues.
