A recent report says that Google fired dozens of employees for abusing their access to company tools or data between 2018 and 2020. In addition, some workers are potentially facing allegations of accessing Google user data or employee data, according to Vice.
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In a document obtained by Motherboard, figures show the investigations Google made into its employees using their positions to "steal, leak, or abuse data they may access to."
In 2020 Google fired 36 employees for security-related issues, the document said. Of all security-related allegations against the former employees, 86% included mishandling confidential information, such as the transfer of internal-only information to outside parties.
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Another 10% of all allegations in 2020 were related to the misuse of systems. The document said that this could include accessing user or employee data in violation of Google's company policies, helping others access that data, or modifying or deleting user or employee data.
In 2019 13% of all terminations were related to security allegations, with 26 people being fired and 18 in 2018, according to Vice.
For its part, Google said it does not think this is an accurate representation of the company as a whole but rather individual inappropriate behavior.
"The instances referred to mostly relate to inappropriate access to, or misuse of, proprietary and sensitive corporate information or IP," a Google spokesperson told Vice.
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"Regarding user data, we tightly restrict 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 statement added. "The number of violations, whether deliberate or inadvertent, is consistently low. 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."