Former Google Engineer Gets 18 Months In Prison For Leaking Company Secrets

Former Google Engineer Anthony Levandowski (Livemint)

JAKARTA - A former Google engineer, Anthony Levandowski, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for stealing confidential company documents. This action was done while joining Uber in the development of autonomous cars.

Launching The Verge, Levandowski has copied more than 14,000 Google files to his personal laptop before leaving the company in January 2016. While working at Google, Levandowski was a team member of the self-driving car project, Waymo.

The files were brought to Uber, to be used as material for a robocar development project. For his actions, Uber fired Levandowski in 2017.

"The last three and a half years have forced me to come to terms with what I did. I would like to take this time to apologize to my colleagues at Google for betraying their trust, and to my entire family for the price they have paid and will continue to pay for the action. me, "said Levandowski, Wednesday, August 5.

According to District Judge the United States (US), William Alsup in San Francisco said Levandowski was guilty of theft of confidential company data. The judge sentenced Google's parent company Alphabet to 18 months in prison and a fine of $ 179 million.

"Anthony Levandowski's theft of the autonomous technology trade secrets has been extremely disruptive and dangerous for Waymo, is treasonous, and the effects may be even more severe if not detected," said a Google Waymo spokesman.

"Judge Alsup's decision today to sentence Levandowski to 18 months in prison for stealing trade secrets from us is a victory for the trade secrets law that promotes the development of cutting-edge technology," he added.

In this case, Uber has completed Alphabet's lawsuit for stealing confidential company documents. The two companies agreed not to pursue this case and focus more on developing the autonomous car industry.