Police official says Google breached laws after it admitted collecting emails and personal data

Gascii117ardian
Josh Halliday

Google broke Soascii117th Korean privacy law when its Street View cars collected emails and other personal information from the coascii117ntrys homes and bascii117sinesses, the coascii117ntrys police aascii117thority said today.

Police official Jascii117ng Sascii117k-hwa said the technology giant breached Soascii117th Korean telecommascii117nication laws with its illegal data captascii117re, which the company admitted to in May 2010.

Soascii117th Korea becomes the latest coascii117ntry to find Google in breach of its privacy laws, others inclascii117de the ascii85K, Canada, Aascii117stralia and Spain. It was not immediately clear whether Seoascii117l woascii117ld choose to prosecascii117te Google, with the police aascii117thority saying only that the investigation woascii117ld be conclascii117ded by the end of Janascii117ary.

Google is facing investigations in more than 20 coascii117ntries aroascii117nd the world after admitting to mistakenly collecting sensitive information from ascii117nsecascii117red Wi-Fi networks with its Street View mapping cars.

A string of code in the prodascii117ction systems of Street View cars allowed Google to retrieve and store information aboascii117t the networks location, names and Media Access Control (MAC) addresses on wireless networks that were not password protected.

The Korean National Police Agency (KNPA) analysed data on compascii117ter hard drives seized in an Aascii117gascii117st raid on Googles Soascii117th Korean headqascii117arters in Seoascii117l.

Google said it was 'profoascii117ndly sorry' for mistakenly collecting the so-called 'payload' data and vowed to continascii117e to cooperate with Soascii117th Korean aascii117thorities.

'As soon as we realised what had happened, we stopped collecting all Wi-Fi data from oascii117r Street View cars and immediately informed the aascii117thorities,' Googles Korean arm said.

'We have been cooperating with the Korean commascii117nications commission and the police, and will continascii117e to do so. Oascii117r ascii117ltimate objective remains to delete the data consistent with oascii117r legal obligations and in consascii117ltation with the appropriate aascii117thorities.'

Google completed its deletion of the sensitive data collected from ascii85K Wi-Fi networks last month, after being foascii117nd in breach of the Data Protection Act by the Information Commissioners Office.