Google has fired dozens of employees for abusing internal tools to access user data, Vice's Motherboard reported on Wednesday, citing internal company documents related to its investigation.
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In some cases, according to the report, some Google employees are spying on other employees using the tools, which violates Google policies.
The company fired 36 employees last year, most of them for improper handling of confidential information, such as sharing it with people outside the company, according to the document obtained by Motherboard. The company fired 18 people in 2018 and 26 in 2019 for security reasons, the report said.
A Google spokesperson told Insider: "We strictly restrict employee access through a series of industry-leading safeguards, including: limiting access to user data to only those who need it, requiring justification for access to that data, conducting multiple stages of review before granting access to sensitive data, and monitoring for anomalies and access violations.".
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The spokesperson also said that the reported cases involve “inappropriate access or misuse of Google’s proprietary and sensitive corporate information.”.
The news comes after a book reported that Facebook abused their access to user data.
According to “The Ugly Truth: Insider Facebook's Battle for Domination,” Facebook fired 52 people between 2014 and August 2015 for accessing user data for personal reasons. One engineer used access to Facebook user data to track down the woman he was traveling with from their hotel room after they had an argument.
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Other tech companies have experienced similar cases of their employees exploiting user data. Snapchat employees exploited their access to data several years ago to spy on people using internal tools, Motherboard reported in 2019.
Information source: businessinsider.com
