Google didn’t delete Street View data after all

Google broke its promise – Google had told angry regulators couple of years ago that it would delete the ill-gotten data after being caught spying on people across Europe with its Street View cars.

UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) received a letter from Google in which the company admits it kept a “small portion” of the electronic information it had been meant to get rid of. ICO could impose fines of up to 500,000 pounds for the most serious data breaches, although penalties are generally far less severe and can involve injunctions or reprimands.

Google said it recently discovered the data while undertaking a comprehensive manual review of Street View disks. The company said it had contacted regulators in all of the countries where it had promised to delete data but realized it had not. Countries affected included France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Austria and Australia.