Google Street View violated UK Privacy Law
The American Internet search giant will escape any fines, however, so long as it pledges not to do it again.
In May 2010, Google Inc. drew international outrage after it emerged that its Street View cars, which take street-level photographs to illustrate the company’s popular mapping service, had also been scooping up e-mails, Internet addresses and passwords from unencrypted wireless networks.Scotland Yard recently said it would not launch a criminal inquiry into the breach, which the company has described as inadvertent.
The result of this investigation is similar to the outcome in Canada: Google was found guilty of violating the law, but was not fined and a criminal investigation was not launched.
UK Information Commissioner Christopher Graham had the power to impose an $800,000 fine, but instead said the “most appropriate and proportionate regulatory action in these circumstances is to get written legal assurance from Google that this will not happen again – and to follow this up with an ICO audit.” Google Street View service will live on in the UK.
However, Google has recently confirmed its Street View cars will not collect any Wi-Fi data at all in the future.