Google has been fined a record €100,000 for violations of French privacy rules by its Street View mapping service, the country's data protection regulator said today.
Google's infractions included collecting passwords and emails transferred wirelessly, the National Commission for Computing and Civil Liberties said in a statement.
The regulator levied its highest fine ever because of the gravity of breaches and "the economic advantages Google gained from these violations". Google has been targeted by data protection authorities in the European Union for its Street View programme, which lets users click on maps to see photographs of roadsides.
The European Commission plans more harmonised data protection rules across the 27-nation region. The US Federal Trade Commission closed an investigation in October after Google said it would improve its safeguards.
Google is "profoundly sorry for having mistakenly collected payload data from unencrypted WiFi networks," Peter Fleischer, the California-based company's global privacy counsel, said in a statement.
"As soon as we realised what had happened, we stopped collecting all WiFi data from our Street View cars and immediately informed the authorities."
While Google, which has two months to appeal the penalty, stopped collecting personal data transmitted by WiFi, the regulator criticised it for continuing to use WiFi for its Latitude mapping service.
Google can delete the data now that the regulator has concluded the investigation, according to the company's statement. The French authority has the power to fine first-time offenders as much as €150,000.
The fine topped a €45,000 penalty levied on Credit Lyonnais, part of Groupe Credit Agricole, in 2006, according to the agency's website.
Google has sought to reconcile with French regulators on numerous fronts, negotiating deals with French publishers, musicians, screenwriters, playwrights, directors and other artists to ensure rights holders are compensated when users of its services such as YouTube access their works.
In October, it settled an investigation by France's competition regulator into advertising for traffic navigation sector. Privacy regulators continue to review the Street View service in countries including Germany and Switzerland, where hearings took place in February, over whether Google's changes were sufficient.
Bloomberg