03 June 2010 | Author: J. Morton Search Copywriter

Google inches closer to Wi-Fi data handover

With its 27 May deadline come and gone, Google has released a statement saying it is "close" to an information handover to appease the Hamburg Information Commissioner, an office of the German government.

The company has admitted to acquiring information about unprotected wireless networks in many parts of the world - which it maintains was accidental - through its extensive Google Street View project, which saw cars and bicycles being employed to photograph local street scenes.

The search company did offer one of its vehicles for inspection, and answered enquiries by the privacy protection body in time for the deadline. The data exchange did not take place on 27 May, however, as Google said it feared it would be in breach of German telecommunications law.

Johannes Caspar of the HIC office said the claim would be a non-issue.

"I have asked the General Prosecutor in Hamburg whether Google would face problems in giving us the material, and he told us that this would not be a problem," he told the BBC.

The privacy body confirmed that it had tested the supplied Google vehicle, and because of the information found, Caspar said, "we think a full investigation is essential."

Caspar and the HIC still say that the only way to carry out such research is through the handover of a hard disk containing the acquired information, and expect Google to comply.

"I expect Google to continue on the path of co-operation and transparency," Caspar said.

Google, in an official statement, noted the handover of the vehicle and said, "we recognise how important this issue is and believe that we are close to resolving the legal issues we have faced in order to make available the payload data we mistakenly ended up collecting."

The German enquiry has made it further than several other international investigations, with bodies including the US Federal Trade Commission and Canada's Privacy Commissioner launching separate campaigns.

The BBC reports that data in some countries, including Ireland and Denmark, has already been destroyed.