The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) in the United Kingdom has ordered Google to delete the personal data harvested by its Street View cars. The company has 35 days to comply or face criminal charges.
The investigation for the incident took a long route after Google acknowledged in June 2010 that its fleet of Street View cars accidentally grabbed payload data over unencrypted Wi-Fi networks. An initial investigation of the ICO practically let the company off the hook when it found out that Google did not collect any meaningful personal information
"The early days of Google Street View should be seen as an example of what can go wrong if technology companies fail to understand how their products are using personal information. The punishment for this breach would have been far worse, if this payload data had not been contained," said Stephen Eckersley, head of enforcement of the ICO through a press statement.
The ICO did not impose any fines against Google since the accidental collection of data did not cause detrimental effects to any individual that will warrant penalties.
The decision of the ICO was unlike the one made by the Federal Communications in the United States back in April 2012 where Google was fined $25,000. The FCC looked into a similar data collection that occurred in the U.S. According to a report on The Next Web, the investigation of the FCC triggered the UK authorities to re-open the case since the statements of Google contradicted their earlier claim that the collection of data was just accidental.
The ICO concluded that the collection of data was due to lack of oversight and procedural failures. The investigating body warned Google that the regulatory body will keep an eye on its operations and will not think twice to take legal action if compliance issues arise in the future.
"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," Google said through a statement to the BBC.
The ICO will have an on-going investigation to see if the privacy policy of Google is in line with the provisions in the Data Protection Act. The agency will send its preliminary findings to Google.
