German regulators hit Google's Street View with largest fine yet

Google has been hit the largest fine as of yet by German privacy regulators. The €145,000 ($189,000) fine was levied against Google due to Street View cars gathering WiFi information. It is being touted as “one of the biggest data protection rules violations known."


Picture source: Google


Picture source: Googlemapsmania

In a press release it states that from 2008 till 2010 Google not only took photographs of streets and houses for its service Google Street View, but also at the same time captured wireless networks with in range of the vehicles used for that purpose. As was admitted by Google in response to an inquiry from the Commissioner for Data Protection, content data of unencrypted Wifi connections had also been recorded in the course of this activity.

Johannes Caspar, the Hamburg Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information goes on to say that in her estimation this is one of the most serious cases of violation of data protection regulations that have come to light so far. She does admit that Google cooperated 100% with the inquiry, and publicly admitted to having behaved incorrectly.

It could have been worse for Google though, because the new regulations being reviewed would have made the sting far greater. Slashgear says that one possibility being discussed by European policy makers is that the maximum should be based on a company’s total annual turnover, with calls for a 2-percent cap. Based on Google’s 2012 total revenues of more than $50bn, that could have meant a potential fine of one billion dollars, had the search giant been penalized under the proposed limits.