14 DAY TRIAL // Google’s admission that it has, mistakenly, collected personal Wi-Fi data for over three years in countries where it has deployed its Street View program was unlikely to go unnoticed. After acknowledging the mishap publicly, Google offered to delete the data at the regulators’ requests. A couple of countries did just that, but the company has now stopped deleting the data after several other countries moved to prevent it for fear of destroying evidence that might be of use in an investigation.
This prompted the company to hold off on deleting any more data until regulators from various countries could make up their minds about how to proceed. The situation doesn’t look good for the company, as several countries are starting to investigate the matter and even the EU seems particularly upset. It’s very likely that Google will be investigated by several regulators and the company isn’t in a great position.
EU countries have been especially aggressive against large technology companies and have been watching Google for the past few years. There have been plenty of concerns over the Street View service and this grave error on the part of Google was just what most had been waiting for.
There are also reports of lawsuits from individuals against the company over the Street View Wi-Fi blunder in the US. In Germany, a preliminary criminal investigation into the matter was launched by data-protection watchdogs. Countries like Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland and Spain have asked Google to keep the stored data, some 600 gigabytes’ worth, for a possible investigation.
Others like Ireland, Denmark and Austria have asked the company to delete the acquired data to prevent any mishandle of the potentially personal information. Since the data gathered, by Google’s own account, was largely useless and couldn’t be used to extract any personal information, the countries believed there was no need to keep it. The data collected from Ireland has already been deleted and possibly that from Denmark and Austria as well.