Although Google is creating excitement at its I/O conference in San Francisco, there is some unwelcome attention in Germany as well. German prosecutors have started a criminal probe into whether the search giant broke laws when its crews collected private Wi-Fi data while taking photos for Google’s Street View application.
The company has reportedly been given a May 26 deadline by German officials to turn over a hard drive from one of the vehicles, which Google has not agreed to do. The investigation is in response to a complaint filed Monday by a German law student who sought clarification about whether such collection violated the law. About 600GB of such data has been collected around the world by Google’s vehicles.
Germany, Italy, France, U.S.
The Hamburg Prosecutor’s Office said it is in an early stage of investigation, and is at least two weeks away from deciding if criminal charges will be pursued.
Germany isn’t the only country to take a second look at Street View collecting. Google said the Irish Data Protection Authority last week asked it to delete the data collected “in error” in Ireland, and it has done so. It also said it is asking similar agencies in other countries about the best way to dispose of the remaining data obtained in their areas.
Authorities in Italy and France are currently reviewing Google’s Street View data-collection practices. U.S. Reps. Joe Barton (R-Texas) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.) have also asked the Federal Trade Commission to see if Google broke any U.S. laws.
On the Official Google Blog, Senior Vice President for Engineering and Research Alan Eustace wrote late last week that the data-protection authority in Hamburg had previously asked to audit the Wi-Fi data collected “for use in location-based products like Google Maps for mobile.” He said the request prompted the company to “re-examine…