The Arc de Triomphe, Paris, as seen in Google Street View
Google have received their first fine for illegally gathering and storing users’ personal data while using Google Street View vehicles. Google “mistakenly” gathered data from unsecured personal WiFi networks in more than thirty countries, including Ireland – something which was officially admitted to in October 2010.
France’s privacy watchdog have imposed a €100,000 fine on Google for their offences, which include the gathering of email addresses, web browsing history, and even banking details. Yann Padova, head of the French privacy watchdog (CNIL) criticised the lack of co-operation and transparency offered by Google during their investigations,
“They didn’t give us all the information we asked for, like the source code of all devices in the Google cars.
“‘They were not always very transparent.”
Google spokesman, Peter Fleisher, iterated previous apologies on Google’s behalf, stating that they were profoundly sorry for their mistakes,
“As we have said before, we are profoundly sorry for having mistakenly collected payload data from unencrypted wi-fi networks.
“As soon as we realised what had happened, we stopped collecting all wi-fi data from our Street View cars and immediately informed the authorities.”
Google have two weeks to appeal the decision.
DARPA's O-Circuit program looks to build a new class of biologically inspired computer equipped with…
As AI races into classrooms worldwide, Google is finding that the toughest lessons on how…
The push to eat bugs is not an organic movement coming from the people, but…
As Africa’s digital economy accelerates, a new partnership between the Africa Digital Assets Summit 2026…
The State of Generative AI in the Enterprise report from Menlo Ventures found that companies…
Living therapies, made of engineered immune cells – and capable of hunting down cancer, reversing…