Google Under Fire from Privacy Experts
A highly influential group of European privacy experts said last week that it will lead hearings with Google over claims that EU data protection laws do not apply to the search giant.
The independent EU advisory body on data protection and privacy, the Article 29 Working Party, said that Google is refusing to submit to Europe’s data protection regime and that “strong disagreements” remain.
The A29WP said in a statement that Google “considers that the European law on data protection is not applicable to itself, even though Google has servers and establishments in Europe.” It adds that Google “wishes to retain personal data of users beyond the six months period requested by the Article 29 Working Party, without any justification.”
The dispute is over the records of users search queries. Google keeps records of searches to use to improve the quality of search results, to fight against fraud and to improve data security.
The A29WP has called for this data to be deleted after six months. In a report published earlier this year, the Party said that companies keeping data for longer risked breaching data protection laws.
“If personal data are stored, the retention period should be no longer than necessary for the specific purposes of the processing,” said the Working Party’s April report.
“In view of the initial explanations given by search engine providers on the possible purposes for collecting personal data, the Working Party does not see a basis for a retention period beyond six months.”
The report also recommends that web users must be able to provide consent to the exploitation of their data, with particular reference to profiling purposes.
Google listened to the recommendations and on the 8th of September confirmed that it would reduce its retention period from 18 to nine months.
However, the Article 29 Working Party says that is not enough: “Google refuses for the moment to submit to the European data protection law.”
A29WP chairman, Alex Turk criticised Google for failing to improve its anonymisation mechanisms, which he labelled as “insufficient”. He said that Google considers that IP addresses are confidential data but not personal data, “which prevents granting certain rights to its users”.
Turk also accused Google of failing to “express the willingness to improve and clarify the methods that are used to gather the consent of its users.”
Google’s Peter Fleischer, from the company’s global privacy counsel, said that the company was committed to engaging in a constructive dialogue with the A29WP and other leading privacy stakeholders around the world.
Google also backtracked from one of its key arguments. Fleischer had previously claimed tat the EU’s Data Retention Directive forced it to keep the details for between six and 24 months. The Party said this was not the case because data retention laws only applied to telecoms companies.
“We agree with the Working Party that search logs are outside of the scope of the Data Retention Directive,” said Fleischer in Google’s response document.
In July Google caved in to pressure from privacy activists when it agreed to publish a direct link to its privacy policy from its front page after calls from regulators to do so.
The Working Party was happier with that, but still wants more. “In conclusion, despite some progress, significant work must still be carried out to guarantee the rights of internet users and to ensure the respect of their privacy,” they said. “In this perspective, the Article 29 Working Party will lead hearings with Google to discuss the points of dissension.”
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