Google has admitted to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) this it has failed to delete all the data collected by its Street View cars, despite assuring authorities that it would do so.
Google came under fire back in 2009 after it was revealed that its Street Views cars, which photographed a great percentage of the UK’s roads, had collected data from unsecured Wi-Fi networks. At first it was thought that no "significant" data had been collected but further investigations revealed that passwords and even entire emails had been gathered.
The ICO was heavily criticised for its handling of the case. Its original investigation said that while the collection of the information was "not fair or lawful and constitutes a significant breach of the first principle of the Data Protection Act," Google would face no penalty. It did however order Google to delete all the data it had collected – which Google said it would do.
Now, Google has said that it is still in possession of some of that data, but wants to work with the ICO on deleting what remains.
"Google has recently confirmed that it still has in its possession a small portion of payload data collected by our Street View vehicles in the UK. Google apologises for this error," a letter to the ICO read.
"In recent months, Google has been reviewing its handling of Street View disks and undertaking a comprehensive manual review of our Street View disk inventory," the letter continued. "That review involves the physical inspection and re-scanning of thousands of disks. In conducting that review we have determined that we continue to have payload data from the UK and other countries. We are in the process of notifying the relevant authorities in those countries."
In response, Steve Eckersley, ICO head of enforcement, said he intends to "examine the contents of the remaining UK payload data and I ask that the data is stored securely until such time that we can complete our examination."
In a statement, the ICO added that Google’s failure to delete all the data could contravene the deal it signed with the ICO. "This data was supposed to have been deleted in December 2010. The fact that some of this information still exists appears to breach the undertaking to the ICO signed by Google in November 2010," the statement said.
"In their letter to the ICO today, Google indicated that they wanted to delete the remaining data and asked for the ICO’s instructions on how to proceed. Our response, which has already been issued, makes clear that Google must supply the data to the ICO immediately, so that we can subject it to forensic analysis before deciding on the necessary course of action," the statement added.
"The ICO is clear that this information should never have been collected in the first place and the company’s failure to secure its deletion as promised is cause for concern," the ICO said.
The ICO recently reopened the investigation into Google. These latest developments will no doubt influence that investigation.
