UPDATED 11:02 EST / NOVEMBER 03 2010

Google Stays in Trouble: UK Crackdown on Street View, Again

While the FTC in the US has closed Street View mapping investigation last week, Google isn’t entirely safe, for it is still  under the scrutiny of Europe, when UK officials said the company has breached data laws. UK Information Commissioner Christopher Graham will hold Google accountable for a “significant breach” of law, and will have the company sign an official paper for the incident to never occur again.

This controversy of Google has alarmed particularly Europe, which several of its countries initiated investigation including Germany, Spain, Italy and France. Germany will be re-tackling their privacy laws more so EU’s 15-yr-old data protection act because of this incident.

The commissioner said they did not impose any monetary compensation for Google, though if the company does not comply with the terms of the agreement signed, there will be further regulatory action. Additionally, Google will have to delete the data as soon as UK says it would be safe to do so.

“It is my view that regulatory action is appropriate in this case in order to ensure that effective privacy controls are built into Google products and services, and in order to ensure that an incident such as [this] is not repeated,” Mr. Graham said in a letter sent Wednesday to Google.

Google’s Global Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer said Wednesday that the company is sorry and will cooperate with the UK’s data regulator, announced last May when they admitted the offense.

Privacy International, a privacy-rights group through it’s head Simon Davies conveyed that while the organization accepts the decision, they “won’t believe the proposed course of action is in any way meaningful,” for the UK regulator “has done too little too late and it’s farcical to come up with a statement about Google before an audit has even been taken.” Additionally, Some organizations in the UK were actually among the first to clear Google of Street Views charges.


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