Google has balked at requests from regulators to surrender Internet data and e-mails it collected from unsecured home wireless networks, saying it needed time to resolve legal issues.
A Google employee on a camera-equipped tricycle recording images for Google's Street View Maps near Paris in August 2009. In Germany, Google said it was not able to comply with the Hamburg data protection supervisors Thursday deadline to hand over data the company had collected inadvertently, it says while roving cars were compiling its Street View photo map archive.
Ironically, the company implied that German privacy laws were preventing it from turning over the information, even to a government agency.
As granting access to payload data creates legal challenges in Germany which we need to review, we are continuing to discuss the appropriate legal and logistical process for making the data available, Peter Barron, a Google spokesman in London, said in a statement. We hope, given more time, to be able to resolve this difficult issue.
The Hamburg data protection supervisor, Johannes Caspar, expressed his disappointment. In a statement, he said the state prosecutor, Lutz von Selle, had assured him that complying with the request would not constitute criminal behavior by Google.
Therefore there is no apparent reason to still withhold the data from us, Mr. Caspar said, while noting that prosecutors in Hamburg, where Google has its German headquarters, have opened a criminal investigation.
Mr. Caspar did not specify what steps he might take next.
Meanwhile, the privacy commissioner in Hong Kong, Roderick B. Woo, threatened unspecified sanctions after Google did not respond to his request to inspect data collected in the territory by the roving cars. Mr. Woo said Google had ignored a Monday deadline to turn over the information.
I am dismayed by Google's apparent lack of sincerity in its handling of this matter, Mr. Woo said in a statement. I do not see that Google is taking the matter seriously enough. Unless some remedial measures are taken by Google promptly, I shall have to consider escalating the situation and resort to more assertive action.
A Google representative in Hong Kong could not be reached immediately for comment Thursday.
The standoffs increase the chance that Google may face fines and legal action in Europe and Asia.
The company has said its cars collected 600 gigabytes of fragmentary data from unsecured Wi-Fi networks in 33 countries and Hong Kong. It has declined to describe the data in more detail, and says it was gathered inadvertently because of a programming error.
A Google employee on a camera-equipped tricycle recording images for Google's Street View Maps near Paris in August 2009. In Germany, Google said it was not able to comply with the Hamburg data protection supervisors Thursday deadline to hand over data the company had collected inadvertently, it says while roving cars were compiling its Street View photo map archive.
Ironically, the company implied that German privacy laws were preventing it from turning over the information, even to a government agency.
As granting access to payload data creates legal challenges in Germany which we need to review, we are continuing to discuss the appropriate legal and logistical process for making the data available, Peter Barron, a Google spokesman in London, said in a statement. We hope, given more time, to be able to resolve this difficult issue.
The Hamburg data protection supervisor, Johannes Caspar, expressed his disappointment. In a statement, he said the state prosecutor, Lutz von Selle, had assured him that complying with the request would not constitute criminal behavior by Google.
Therefore there is no apparent reason to still withhold the data from us, Mr. Caspar said, while noting that prosecutors in Hamburg, where Google has its German headquarters, have opened a criminal investigation.
Mr. Caspar did not specify what steps he might take next.
Meanwhile, the privacy commissioner in Hong Kong, Roderick B. Woo, threatened unspecified sanctions after Google did not respond to his request to inspect data collected in the territory by the roving cars. Mr. Woo said Google had ignored a Monday deadline to turn over the information.
I am dismayed by Google's apparent lack of sincerity in its handling of this matter, Mr. Woo said in a statement. I do not see that Google is taking the matter seriously enough. Unless some remedial measures are taken by Google promptly, I shall have to consider escalating the situation and resort to more assertive action.
A Google representative in Hong Kong could not be reached immediately for comment Thursday.
The standoffs increase the chance that Google may face fines and legal action in Europe and Asia.
The company has said its cars collected 600 gigabytes of fragmentary data from unsecured Wi-Fi networks in 33 countries and Hong Kong. It has declined to describe the data in more detail, and says it was gathered inadvertently because of a programming error.
