Google said on Friday it will resume collection of Street View images in four country following the remotion of Wi - Fi data collecting equipment that shove the ship’s company into the limelight of data protection official worldwide .
Starting next week , Street View vehicle will being vagabond Ireland , Norway , South Africa and Sweden again , wrote Brian McClendon , vice United States President of engineering for Google Geo on the party ’s European public policyblog . Google has spoken to regulators in those countries .
“ The Wi - Fi data point collection equipment has been removed from our cars in each country , and the independent security experts Stroz Friedberg have approved a communications protocol to ensure any Wi - Fi - colligate software is also removed from the motorcar before they start drive again , ” McClendon wrote . “ Our cars will no longer collect any Wi - Fi entropy at all , but will uphold to collect photos and 3D imagination as they did before . ”
“ We recognize that serious mistakes were made in the collection of Wi - Fi payload data , and we have worked to quickly rectify them , ” he wrote .
Google accept in May thatit had take in informationsuch as SSID ( Service Set Identifier ) and MAC ( Media Access Control ) address from unencrypted Wi - Fi router , following a request for an audited account by German datum protection authorities in Hamburg . The admission fee started a spate of inquiries into the program in other countries including France , Italy , the U.K. , the U.S. , and Spain .
The U.K. ’s Information Commissioner ’s Office said Google appeared to have breached data aegis requirement but the bureau declined to take action when Google gibe to edit the datum . In Germany , the Hamburg public prosecutor ’s office is continuing its criminal investigating into Street View , but charge have not been filed yet , spokesman Wilhelm Möllers read on Friday .
