A former Google engineer, her husband and sister have been charged with serious criminal offenses in the US over alleged trade secret theft related to Google’s in-house tensor processor. Samaneh Ghandali, 41, an Iranian national, has worked as a hardware engineer at Google in Silicon Valley, Bloomberg reported. His 32-year-old sister Soroor Ghandali had also been an intern at the company. Later both of them joined another tech company. According to the US Justice Department, the case concerns Google’s confidential hardware data, which pertains to the company’s in-house Tensor processor used in its Pixel smartphones. The allegation is that sensitive and confidential information was obtained illegally while working or searching for a job in the technical field.

If found guilty, he may face 20 years’ imprisonment

This case has been filed in the US District Court located in the Northern District of California. Charges have been framed against the three accused under a total of 14 serious criminal sections including conspiracy, trade secret theft and destruction of evidence. The three were arrested on February 19 and appeared in federal court in San Jose. If found guilty, he could face a maximum sentence of up to 20 years. Responding to the matter, Google said that as soon as the incident was discovered, the company took immediate action and informed law enforcement agencies. According to a company spokesperson, security measures have been further strengthened to protect confidential information.

A similar case came up last month also

It is noteworthy that last month also, former Google software engineer Linwei Ding, also known as Leon Ding, was convicted of economic espionage and trade secret theft. He was accused of stealing thousands of pages of confidential documents from Google related to Artificial Intelligence technology and using them in the interest of China. The decision came after an 11-day hearing in the court of US District Judge Vince Chhabria of the Northern District of California.