Italian Prosecutors Investigating Google Street View For Privacy Breach

Prosecutors in Italy are investigating Google’s Street View service to determine if the company violated privacy laws when it collected wifi data over unencrypted networks earlier this year. Officials in Rome announced the probe on Wednesday.

This is separate from Italy’s request last weekend that Google mark its Street View cars and publish their itineraries in advance. That ruling was from Italy’s privacy authority and was more about the generic Street View photography; this new probe is specific to the wifi data collection that several countries are investigating and is being conducted by Italian prosecutors.

As with the other privacy investigations that are underway, Google has apologized to Italian authorities and said it would cooperate with their investigation.