Google faces fresh Street View inquiry in UK

Data protection officials in the UK are re-opening their investigation into Google after the search group admitted its Street View cars had captured complete emails and passwords from domestic WiFi networks.

The Information Commissioner's Office cleared Google of breaching the data protection act in May, after examining a sample of the Street View data. Google said it accidentally collected "fragments" of information travelling over unsecured wireless networks. But regulators in Canada and Spain have accused Google of breaking local laws. Facing such responses, Google said on Friday that it had collected more complete personal data than it had initially realized. "It's clear from those [regulators'] inspections that while most of the data is fragmentary, in some instances entire emails and URLs were captured, as well as passwords," wrote Alan Eustace, Google's senior vice president of engineering and research in a blogpost. In response to this, the ICO said on Sunday that it would ask Google if emails and passwords were collected in the UK too.