France asks Google for Street View data

According to France’s data-protection authority, they have requested for Internet search giant Google to pass data that were collected in secret from Internet users through their Street View mapping cars, which Google did mention recently that they failed to delete all the collected data despite making a promise to do so in the past. This demand from the French comes hot off the heels of a similar request by Britain’s privacy watchdog. Just what kind of content does the collected Street View data hold? Well, we are talking about passwords and emails that were picked up from private wireless hotspots.

France’s CNIL authority mentioned on their website that it had put forward a request to Google to “place at its disposal the relevant data and to conserve the data for as long as it takes to carry out the necessary investigations”. According to a Google spokesman, Google has every intention now to erase whatever data that remained, but will not take that action immediately as the CNIL alongside a slew of other agencies would want to have a closer look at those data beforehand.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Computers
Tags: Google, street view