14 DAY TRIAL // Google has revealed that all of the Street View data illegally, though inadvertently, the company says, collected from unprotected WiFi networks in the UK has now been deleted, as per instructions from the UK Information Commissioner's Office.
The data took longer than anticipated to delete, but all UK data is now gone, as both Google and the ICO confirmed. However, data collected by Street View cars is still available for other countries which have not concluded their investigation.
"We are profoundly sorry for mistakenly collecting payload data in the UK from unencrypted wireless networks. Since we announced our mistake in May we have cooperated closely with the ICO and worked to improve our internal controls," Google said in a statement.
"As we have said before, we did not want this data, have never used any of it in our products or services, and have sought to delete it as quickly as possible. We can confirm that the UK data has now been deleted, and that this has been independently certified," it added.
The ICO welcomed the move and said it was in line with the agreement reached with Google after the second investigation. While the data has been deleted, Google will still have to undergo an audit of its systems next year by the ICO.
Google announced that it will delete all WiFi data from the UK about a month ago. Google had nine months to comply with the request. An initial batch of data was deleted last month, but a second set took longer as Google wanted to make sure that it did not accidentally delete data from other regions, where it has been ordered to retain it while investigations continue.
However, Google has been less compliant with requests on its home turf. Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal asked Google to hand over data collected in the US for inspection. The soon-to-be senator has a history of going after technology firms on flimsy accusations.
The latest grandstanding campaign was geared towards Craigslist which was pressured to drop its Adults Services section. While the attorney general had no legal basis to go after the listings site, the press campaign eventually forced Craigslist to shut down the section in the US.
The request from the attorney general comes more than six months after Google revealed that it had collected private WiFi data. Google did not grant access to the data, having previously said that it does not feel obligated to do so. The attorney general is now threatening with a lawsuit, but has not said what steps, if any, he will take next.