Google Privacy Policy 'Unlawful'
Google's new privacy policy, set to go live on Thursday, is said to be 'unlawful' by the European Commission's data protection advisors.
The search giant unveiled plans to introduce a new unified privacy policy to cover all its services last month. The consolidated data pool that a singular policy brings will allow Google to track its users' interests and target advertising more accurately.
The announcement of the new policy prompted an investigation by the Article 29 Working Party, a group made up of national privacy regulators. Their initial findings have found that "Google's new policy does not meet the requirements of the European Directive on Data Protection, especially regarding the information provided to data subjects".
European Data protection authorities "are deeply concerned about the combination of personal data cross services", according to Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin of the French Data Protection Authority, which is leading the investigation.
Responding to the allegations, Google said that it had fully engaged with the investigation:
“Over the past month we have offered to meet with the [French data protection authority] on several occasions to answer any questions they might have, and that offer remains open. We believe we’ve found a reasonable balance between the Working Party’s recommendations: to ‘streamline and simplify’ our policies while providing ‘comprehensive information’ to users.
As the Working Party doesn't have the power to enforce recommendations, it's likely that the privacy policy will go into effect as planned on Thursday. Do you think Google's unified privacy policy is a threat to your data protection?
