Culture minister and ICO to discuss Google Wi-Fi snooping

Google guilty of "systemic mendacity", according to Tory MP David Davis

MPs suggest Google deliberately acquired data for commercial purposes

Culture Minister Ed Vaizey is to meet Information Commissioner Christopher Graham over privacy concerns surrounding Google's collection of individuals' broadband Wi-Fi data.

He told MPs that discussions will take place next week following protests from MPs who accused the company of deliberately acquiring the information for commercial purposes.

Vaizey admitted during a Commons debate that the Commissioner has no power to fine Google over the breach of data protection because the power to do so was not introduced until after the Street View survey took place.

He also revealed the Metropolitan Police had considered whether the breach merited a criminal investigation but had decided it did not.

Vaizey said his discussion with Graham would look at what he intends to do as the next step. He added: "More particularly, I am interested in what he intends to do about the data, and what he intends to do in terms of Google’s breach of data protection.”

The debate was called by Tory Robert Halfon, who said: "I found it hard to believe that a company with the creative genius and originality of Google could map the personal Wi-Fi details, computer passwords and email addresses of millions of people across the world and not know what it was doing."

He added: "My feeling is that the data was of use to Google for commercial purposes and that that is why it was done."

He called for an Internet Bill of Rights to provide a new legal framework online to redress the balance between the freedom of the internet and civil liberties.

He also called for a "serious commission of inquiry".

Liberal Democrat Don Foster said: "It is not surprising that the company wants to capture as much of the data as it can for commercial purposes."

Former shadow home secretary David Davis criticised a systematic pattern of behaviour that he said was "backed up, frankly, by systematic mendacity on Google's part - initially it said that this happened by accident, then that it was a mistake and finally it said, 'We will eventually get rid of the data'."