UK reopens investigation into Google Street View

Steve Eckersley, enforcement chief of the British Information Commissioner's Office, said Google Inc. had questions to answer about Street View, an attention-grabbing project which sent camera-toting vehicles across the globe to create three-dimensional maps of the world's highways and byways.

But the cars weren't just taking pictures: They were scooping up passwords, web addresses, emails, and other sensitive data transmitted over unsecured wireless networks.

There was outrage on both sides of the Atlantic when the data-slurping was exposed in early 2010, and the U.K. Information Commissioner's Office was one of several European agencies which investigated Street View in the aftermath of the scandal. But in November of that year, the ICO gave Google a mere slap on the wrist, saying that while Google had violated British data protection laws it would escape any fines so long as it pledged not to do it again.

At the time, Google insisted that the breach was an accident.

"We did not want this data, have never used any of it on our products and services, and have sought to delete it as quickly as possible," the company claimed in 2010.

Evidence made public earlier this year by the Federal Communications Commission has since punctured Google's "oops-I-took-your-data" defense.

In an April 13 report, the FCC found that Google's data collection was the deliberate work of a Google engineer and that his Street View colleagues had been briefed on his activities. The report also noted that investigators in France, Canada and The Netherlands found that Google intercepted complete email messages, instant message conversations, video, audio, medical and legal information, and data related to dating or pornographic websites.