The personal data protection agencies of France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK have launched coordinated actions against Google. The move follows the Article 29 Working Party of EU regulators' investigation into Google's privacy policy, conducted between March and October 2012. The resulting report found that Google should do more to enable users see what information is held about them, supply tools to manage the data and ensure it did not store too much user data. The regulators gave Google four months to bring its activities in line with local privacy regulations.
The six countries' authorities held a meeting on 19 March with Google to assess the company's progress, but French regulator Cnil said they found no signs of change at Google. As a result, the regulator has begun an inspection of the American company and established an international administrative cooperation procedure with other taskforce members.
The inspection could lead to fines for Google if violations of privacy regulations are found. The company has already been fined in numerous countries after the Google Cars collecting images for its Street View service also collected personal information from Wi-Fi routers. The move by the EU regulators came the same day as news emerged that Google's UK-based head of data privacy, Alma Whitten, had resigned.
