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Civil rights campaigners have warned that people are “in the dark” about how Google’s new privacy policy could affect them.
The policy came into effect today, despite warnings it might violate the European Union’s data protection rules.
The change means private data collected by one Google service can be shared with its other platforms including YouTube, Gmail and Blogger.Nick Pickles, director of privacy and civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch, warned that not enough had been done to ensure users were aware of what the changes meant for them.
Google has said the changes will allows users to navigate between different services more easily and make search results more relevant.But the EU’s data protection authorities are concerned about the privacy effects of the policy and have asked French regulator CNIL to investigate.CNIL said its “preliminary analysis shows that Google’s new policy does not meet the requirements of the European Directive on Data Protection”.In a letter posted on its website,
CNIL said Google’s explanation of how it will use the data was too vague and difficult to understand “even for trained privacy professionals”.Google have said they are happy to discuss any concerns over the changes.Peter Fleischer, Google’s global privacy counsel, said: “Over the past month we have asked to meet with the CNIL on several occasions to answer any questions they might have, and that offer remains open.
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