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European privacy regulators and advocates have slammed Google, the world’s largest search engine, after it disclosed that it had systematically collected personal data on individuals for the last four years.
Google disclosed that it did the same while compiling Google’s StreetView photo archive.
Google posted a blog on the company’s Web site yesterday admitting that it had collected personal data on individuals around the world. Google added that the data collection was inadvertent and the result of a programming error and it took place in all countries where StreetView has been catalogued. It means that it took place in the US and some European nations.
However, Google apologized and said it had not used the information and announced to delete the information the data.
“Based on the information we have before us, it appears that Google has illegally tapped into private networks in violation of German law. This is alarming and further evidence that privacy law is a foreign concept to Google,” said Ilse Aigner, the German minister for food, agriculture and consumer protection.
Meanwhile, the data protection supervisor for Hamburg Johannes Caspar said, “This is a data scandal of a much larger magnitude. We are talking here about the large-scale collection of private data on individuals.”
Caspar is leading the German government’s dealings with Google on the issue. HE added that Germany would take up the Google’s revelation of illegal data collection by the Article 29 Working Party, a panel of experts that advises the European Commission on regulatory issues.
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