No European Love for Google Street View Program

Europe has not been a big fan of Google’s Street View Program.

What Is Street View

Street View is a web application that allows you to take a virtual tour of a city and feel as though you are standing right on the streets of that city. Google gathers the pictures for Street View with vehicles driving on public roads and equipped with advanced imaging technology. Several European countries were not thrilled by Google’s filming of people’s residences and private property without their permission.

Another Street View Misstep

Evidently, while driving the city streets collecting digital photographs, Google inadvertently collected personal data from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks. News reports suggests the collected data includes information such as email and bank account numbers.

Google wanted to destroy the data after conducting an internal audit to correct its data gathering practices. However, European privacy regulators were outraged at Google’s mistake. Germany, Spain and France have demanded that Google provide them with copies of the mistakenly collected data. And who knows where the European investigation will go from there.