French data protection agency Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertes (CNIL) has said that Google Inc. recorded passwords and bits of e-mail messages while collecting data for its Street View mapping service. France is the latest country to accuse Google Inc. for illegally gathering private data from Wi-Fi networks in the country through its Street View project.
Google recently came under fire for capturing online activities over Wi-Fi networks in over 30 countries while it was photographing neighbourhoods for its Street View feature. The company has been handing over data to authorities in the affected countries for the past two weeks.
CNIL is reportedly examining the data that it received from Google on June 4. According to a CNIL representative, the organisation may yet seek financial or criminal penalties over the privacy breach.
Earlier last month, Google acknowledged that it had mistakenly collected data over public Wi-Fi networks in more than 30 countries. The company had then said that the information was sent over unencrypted residential wireless networks as Google's Street View cars with mounted recording equipment passed by. The company also said that the data collection that took place in all the countries where Street View had been catalogued was unintentional and happened due to a programming error.
Australia and Germany have already launched their own investigations into the matter. Several state attorneys general in the US are also looking into the issue.
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