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A man walks
past a Google logo drawn with chalk on a wall at the
Google campus near Venice
Beach, in Los Angeles, California,
January 13, 2012. (Credit:
Reuters/Lucy Nicholson)
|
(Reuters) -
Data protection agencies in European countries have concluded Google Inc's new
privacy policy is in breach of European law, EU Justice Commissioner Viviane
Reding said Thursday.
France's
data protection watchdog, the CNIL, has also cast doubt on the legality of the
policy and informed Google it would lead a European-wide investigation into
this.
Reding told
BBC Radio Four data control authorities in Europe asked French counterparts to
analyze the new policy.
"And
they have come to the conclusion that they are deeply concerned, and that the
new rules are not in accordance with the European law, and that the
transparency rules have not been applied," Reding said.
Google said
in January it was simplifying its privacy policy, consolidating 60 guidelines
into a single one that will apply to all its services including YouTube, Gmail
and social network Google+.
Users
cannot opt out of the new policy if they want to continue using Google's
services.
Asked in
what respects the policy could be breaking EU law, Reding said: "In
numerous respects. One is that nobody had been consulted, it is not in
accordance with the law on transparency and it utilizes the data of private
persons in order to hand it over to third parties, which is not what the users
have agreed to."
It would
have been impossible for Google to instigate the policy under proposed
legislation she laid out on January 25, Reding said.
"Protection
of personal data is a basic rule of the European Union. It is inscribed in the
treaties. It is not an if, it is a must," she said.
Google
earlier posted a blog defending its policy after what it called "a fair
amount of chatter and confusion."
"Our
privacy policy is now much easier to understand," the company said.
"We've
included the key parts from more than 60 product-specific notices into our main
Google Privacy Policy -- so there's no longer any need to be your own mini
search engine if you want to work out what's going on."
Reding
argued most users were unaware of what they were signing up to when they used
mainstream Internet services.
"Seventy
percent of users rarely, or never, use terms and conditions which very often
are written in small print, very complicated, not understandable for the normal
user, and users are worried," she told the BBC.
"Eighty
percent of British citizens say they're concerned about what is going on
now."
She also
said these issues affected many companies, not just Google.
"We
know data is the bloodstream of these new industries ... but at the same time
there are basic European rules ... which have to be applied, and unfortunately
we always see that those rules are just not observed, and illegality is taking
over."
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