French data protection agency Cnil has fined Google EUR 100,000 for failing to correct its practices of collecting private data (user ID, passwords, connection data, e-mails) used for its Google Maps, Street View and Latitude location-based services. After a series of field tests in late 2009 and early 2010, Cnil put the internet company on notice to regularise its situation in May 2010. It required Google to cease all data collection without consumers' knowledge and to give it a copy of all of the data it had collected in France. The body had found that not only did the Google cars collect data without consumers' knowledge, but the process allowed the company to build up an extremely effective location database, giving it a dominant position in this sector. In its decision of 17 March, Cnil stated that although Google made a commitment to stop collecting Wi-Fi data with its Google cars and to erase content it collected in error, the company had not stopped using data identifying private individuals' Wi-Fi access points. This data is no longer collected by Google cars but directly by users' mobile phones via the Google Latitude location service, again without their knowledge. Cnil also reproaches Google for not having submitted details of the software programme it used to collect the Wi-Fi data and for contesting the application of French law to the Latitude service.
