The European Commission’s Freedom, Security, and Justice Division has requested Google to provide additional information about its data-retention policies.
Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, a group of data protection officials coming from 27 countries, is helping the Commission to validate if there is any violation of EU privacy laws.
Earlier, the Article 29 Working Party the Chair Peter Schaar informed the Mountain View-based search engine that it failed to meet the EU data-retention policies despite making some major readjustments.
Google has not responded to the letter but its Global Privacy counsel Peter Fleischer is quick to defend this new feature.
“Google recently announced a new policy to anonymize our server logs after 18-24 months. We’re the only leading search company to have taken this step publicly. We believe it’s an important part of our commitment to respect user privacy while balancing a number of important factors, such as maintaining security and preventing fraud and abuse,” said Fleischer.
The company expresses its willingness to meet with different privacy stakeholders to improve the system and protect privacy of Internet users.
Originally posted on May 29, 2007 @ 5:04 am