In an open letter addressed to Google Australia's head of public policy and government affairs, Iarla Flynn, the two organisations highlighted the company's collection of Wi-Fi access point data by cars taking photos of streets and houses as part of its Street View feature.

The letter's complaint centres on Google's announcement last month that its Street View cars captured Wi-Fi access points' unique MAC addresses while also taking 360 degree imagery of the surrounding area. While users can change the name, or SSID, of their wireless network, the MAC addresses are fixed to the router or device.

The rising popularity of consumer electronics devices, such as printers, that create ad-hoc wireless networks between the device and a computer rather than relying on a central router has raised the concern that Google may be able to determine what actual devices a particular house might have.

In the that incited the open letter, the company explains that it utilises this data to provide better location data for GPS-enabled devices such as smartphones.

Many consumer devices, including the iPad and Android-based smartphones, utilise three or more surrounding wireless access points to triangulate their location, which is often faster than satellite-based GPS data, though not necessarily as accurate. While smartphones don't typically cache this data, the letter's co-authors expressed concern that Google may store this data for unknown uses.