UK ICO Reopens Google Street View Investigation

Posted on Jun 13 2012 - 5:09am by Editorial Staff

UK data protection agency not letting Google to go away from it even for a single second, the country’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), following an FCC report reopens Google Street View Investigation. The ICO’s Steve Eckersley, head of enforcement, has sent a letter [PDF] (via ZDNet) to Google senior vice president Alan Eustace asking for answers to a list of seven questions.

The seven questions:

  1. Please list precisely what type of personal data and sensitive personal data was captured within payload data collected in the UK?
  2. Please confirms at what point Google managers become aware of the type of payload data being captured during operations in the UK and what technological or organizational measures were introduced to limit further data collection prior to the admissions made by Google Inc on the blogpost dated 14th May 2010?
  3. Please provide a substantial explanation as to why this type of data was not included in the pre prepared data sampled presented to and viewed by staff from the Information Commissioner Office.
  4. At what point had the senior managers within Google seen the software design documents and briefed about the code and precisely what type of data it could capture during the development process and actual capture of payload data?
  5. Please provide copies of original software design document and any subsequent version control software documentation and associated logs used to record managerial decision and rationale?
  6. Please outline in full the privacy concerns identified by Google Managers once the engineer revealed the practice, including the details of how this treat was managed and what decisions were made to continue or terminate this practice?
  7. Please outline what measures were introduced to prevent breaches of the Data Protection Act 1998 at each stage of the Google Street View process.

A Google spokesperson told the BBC it was “happy to answer the ICO’s questions,” but claimed the regulator “never even looked at” the payload data, despite Eckersley claiming it was “viewed”.

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