The Los Angeles Police Department Protective League has said it is concerned about the city council’s plan to start using Google Apps for its messaging and office services, and says privacy measures must be used to protect confidential information.
“Our concerns are well-founded and understandable, given that government and corporate computer network breaches have become more prevalent over the past several years,” said Paul Weber, president of the league, in a blog post. “Just recently, Twitter acknowledged that hackers were able to access confidential information stored with Google.”
The move is set to save the city council about $8.31 million over five years, after abandoning the need for license fees from Microsoft and Novell.
The move comes after Google has been advertising on billboards to “Go Google”, in a bid to have more people use its free Google Apps suite as an alternative to the Microsoft Office software.
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
