Google admits it did not delete Street View data

Google was ordered to delete the collected data

Google Inc said on Friday it had not kept its promise to delete all the personal data, such as emails, its Street View cars collected in Britain and other countries in 2010.

The data should have been wiped almost 18 months ago as part of a deal signed by the firm in November 2010. Google has been told to give the data to the UK’s Information Commissioner (ICO) for forensic analysis.

The ICO said it was co-ordinating its response with other European privacy bodies.

In May 2010 it was revealed that Google had scooped up about 600 gigabytes of personal data from unsecured wireless networks while gathering images and location data for Street View.

Google apologised for gathering the data and said it was a “mistake”. The blunder led to legal action, fines and investigations around the world.

In the UK, Google gave an undertaking to destroy the data it was holding and issued a statement saying it had done so in December 2010. However, said the ICO, Google had recently contacted it to report that some of the data it had gathered had not been deleted.

The company approached the ICO with the revelation to find out how it should act. In response, the ICO told Google to hand over the data immediately “so that we can subject it to forensic analysis before deciding on the necessary course of action”.

Google were fined $25,000 in April for impeding a U.S. investigation into Street View data collection.