Google told to delete Street View payload data or face UK
prosecution
Information commissioner's office says it will launch
contempt of court proceedings if data is not deleted within 35 days
Josh Halliday
guardian.co.uk, Friday 21 June 2013 07.45 EDT
Google has been threatened with criminal proceedings by
the information commissioner's office (ICO) over data secretly collected by its
Street View cars in the UK.
The privacy watchdog said it would prosecute the US firm
under the contempt of court act if it failed to delete private information it
gathered from public Wi-Fi networks.
The ICO has served Google with an enforcement notice
ordering it to delete the data within 35 days or face criminal proceedings.
Stephen Eckersley, the ICO's head of enforcement, said:
"Today's enforcement notice strengthens the action already taken by our
office, placing a legal requirement on Google to delete the remaining payload
data identified last year within the next 35 days and immediately inform the
ICO if any further disks are found. Failure to abide by the notice will be
considered as contempt of court, which is a criminal offence."
It is not known what private details are included in the
so-called payload data held by Google about British citizens. But privacy
watchdogs in the US found that it contained traces of passwords, emails and
text messages sent over unsecured Wi-Fi networks.
Google has faced criticism from regulators around the
world for collecting private information with its Street View mapping cars
between May 2007 and May 2010. The company admitted publicly in May 2010 that
it had collected the data, which the Federal Communications Commission said was
not a breach of US laws.
On Friday the ICO said it would "be taking a keen
interest in [Google's] operations and will not hesitate to take action if
further serious compliance issues come to its attention".
The watchdog added: "Based on a detailed
investigation, including an analysis of the data Google has recorded, the ICO
has concluded that the detriment caused to individuals by this breach fails to
meet the level required to issue a monetary penalty."
A Google spokesman said: "We work hard to get
privacy right at Google. But in this case we didn't, which is why we quickly
tightened up our systems to address the issue. The project leaders never wanted
this data, and didn't use it or even look at it.
"We co-operated fully with the ICO throughout its
investigation, and having received its order this morning we are proceeding
with our plan to delete the data."
Comments
Post a Comment