The privacy backlash against Google Street View has now expanded to the United Kingdom.
Members of Parliament in the U.K. have accused Google of deliberately collecting Wi-Fi data for commercial gain. As reported earlier Friday, Google’s Street View Car, which takes pictures of buildings along city streets, had collected passwords, e-mail messages, and Web addresses of users on unencrypted Wi-Fi networks.
During a two-hour parliamentary debate in the House of Commons Thursday on privacy, Google’s questions of events was questioned, the BBC reported. A conservative MP, Robert Halfon, questioned Google’s insistence that the details were sucked up by the cars as a result of its mistake.
Google’s head of public relations told BBC’s Today program that there was code that was intended to map wi-fi hotspots, but never intended to grab personal information, the BBC reported.
Google will not be prosecuted by London’s Metropolitan Police over the privacy snafu, the Daily Telegraph reported. Read More
