European Union: Google, change your policy!

Google may expect a “repressive action” should it not respond to EU's recommendations concerning its management of user data. The giant has to implement changes before this summer.

A dozen recommendations has been adopted unanimously by 27 national regulators last October and, according to France's privacy watchdog, Google hasn't applied these changes yet. The company may face a “repressive action” as a group of data protection officials from each member states – known as The Article 29 Working Party – is to vote on the act at the end of February.

In a statement released today, the Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertes said that “European data protection authorities have noted that Google did not provide any precise and effective answers to their recommendations”. The CNIL adds that “In this context, the EU data protection authorities are committed to act and continue their investigations.” It was proposed that a working group should be set up to coordinate this “repressive action” and to make sure that alterations take place before summer.

The group made a suggestion that Google should respect data collected from the users for the purposes of service improvement and advertising, provide an “opt-out” solutions for those willing to quit their Google experience, and apply some rules that would clearly define the difference between data collected for security and advertising purposes. It was also pointed out that the giant does not state precisely how long it stores user data.

These recommendations were made in October, and regulators gave the company four months to work on its privacy policy. Google commented on the issue saying that their privacy policy is by no means in violation of EU law. Furthermore, the giant did not agree to delay implementing its new policy, claiming that the law was analyzed by privacy regulators earlier and that no objections were raised at that moment.

This is not the first time in this few weeks with privacy issues concerning Google surfacing and causing a stir; just a couple of days ago the company was accused of sending user data to the developers of Android apps.