Vindicated about Google Street View and the privatised surveillance society

Today’s announcement by the Information Commissioner for an investigation into the alleged hovering up of Wi-Fi and email addresses by Google StreetView is to be welcomed.
The fact is that the Information Commissioner has been asleep at the wheel. It’s taken 18 months for proper action to be taken, and even now it's only thanks to recent revelations as reported in newspapers that the ICO has finally woken up and decided to act.

Back in 2010 with privacy campaigners (e.g. Privacy International, Big Brother Watch, Open Rights Group) I warned in Parliament that Google was on the road to creating a privatised surveillance society, and could be seriously infringing the Data Protection Act with its StreetView project.

The public ICO letter to Google today (pictured below) states that contrary to Google's original assurances"information was deliberately captured during the GSV operations conducted in the UK”:

Writing in the Daily Mail at the time (2010), I said:

"After months of fudges and denials, Google has finally admitted that the cars it sent out to take pictures of every street in Britain — as well as many other countries around the world — had also hoovered up computer passwords, entire email histories and web addresses from millions of unsuspecting householders."
In a backbench debate wihich I organised on the issue in autumn 2010, I told Parliament that a legal framework - an Internet Bill of Rights - was now necessary to protect ordinary people from having private information collected by commercial companies. I argued that the ICO response had been weak and lily-livered.
The problem should have been picked up by the Information Commissioner in the first instance. Major questions needed to be asked. Why did the Information Commissioner assure the public, the Government and Parliament that all was well? Why did it take an admission of malpractice on the company's own blog to trigger a new inquiry by the Information Commissioner?

I welcome today’s announcement by the Information Commissioner, but 18 months ago would have been better.

NOTES:

1) ICO announcement of a full investigation into Google: http://www.ico.gov.uk/news/current_topics.aspx

2) Sunday Times investigation, that finally prompted the ICO to take action: http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/Tech/article1052304.ece (£)