Six EU Countries Take Legal Action Against Google Over Privacy

By Kelly Burke for Intellectual Property Watch

The Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés (CNIL), the French privacy body, said this week in a statement that it will take legal action against Google after the search engine failed to implement changes to its privacy policies. They were joined by data protection agencies from five other European countries.

Organisations in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom agreed to take joint action, which may involve an investigation and possible fines. Each of the six European states bringing legal action against Google will have to make its own decision on how to handle perceived violations.

In March 2012, Google merged 60 separate privacy policies from around the world into one universal procedure. European Union data regulators became concerned that the revised policy violated the European Data Protection Directive (95/46/CE). After an investigation concluded in October 2012, CNIL “asked Google to comply with their recommendations within four months” but did not see implementation of “any significant compliance measures” by Google, the statement said.

The UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) also issued a statement confirming it had opened an investigation to evaluate whether Google’s policy complies with the country’s Data Protection Act.