Google denies ‘cover-up’ as Street View data collection probe reopens

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London, June 19: Internet search giant Google has strongly denied claims that the Streetview data provided to a British investigation firm was ‘pre-prepared.’

Google has been accused of deliberately harvesting information from millions of UK home computers while operating specially equipped cars for its Street View service.

The firm issued the robust response as Britain’s Information Commissioner’s (ICO) decided to reopen the investigation into unauthorised ‘WiFi snooping’ by Streetview cars.

Responding to questions about why Google handed over what was apparently a limited sample of the data collected, and when managers knew about the breach, Google told the ICO that it provided all the data in a way that the regulator had agreed.

The firm denied any “pre-preparation” of the data and said that nothing had changed from the original investigation in 2010, The Telegraph reports.

According to the paper, Google, in its response, said although the company concedes that managers could have identified “red flags”, nobody at Google knew what was going on until it was discovered in May 2010.

“No project leader asked for or wanted the payload data; and no payload data was ever used in any product or service. That’s the context in which the documents Google has disclosed should be viewed,” the firm added.

The ICO reopened its investigation after US regulators found that Google had captured passwords, emails and pictures, and fined the company 25,000 dollars. (ANI)