The UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO)
has told Google to delete Wi-Fi data it collected from its Street View
cars in that country, but will take no punitive action.
ICO is the UK's independent authority for
preserving data privacy and information rights.
The ICO said Google's
collection was a "serious breach" and that it would audit
Google, but Google will simply be asked to delete the data it collected and
agree to a number of steps to ensure no repeat of what Google said was an
inadvertent data collection.
Google has been grilled by Congress and
investigated by the FTC over the breaches in this country.
After an audit of its Street View initiative,
which collects Wi-Fi data for Google Maps and other location-based applications,
Google conceded that it had not only been collecting the names and Wi-Fi
router addresses, but also data sent over the networks. But it said its initial
denial of collecting data was a mistake, as was collecting that data, which it
said it never used.
UK police are not pursuing an investigation, according to ICO.
