ICO in 80-day Google ultimatum

Google has been given 80 days to change its privacy policy or face the prospect of enforcement action – and a potential £500,000 fine – by the data watchdog.
The Information Commissioner’s Office has written to the company over the policy – which allows private data to be shared across all of its platforms for advertising purposes.
Replacing more than 60 privacy policies for services such as YouTube and Gmail, the single policy was implemented in March last year. At the time, the company was accused of putting advertisers’ interests ahead of its own users.
The European Commission has already threatened sanctions, although Google claimed it “respects European law and allows us to create simpler, more effective services”.
In a statement, the ICO said: “We have today written to Google to confirm our findings relating to the update of the company’s privacy policy. In our letter we confirm that its updated privacy policy raises serious questions about its compliance with the UK Data Protection Act.
“In particular, we believe that the updated policy does not provide sufficient information to enable UK users of Google’s services to understand how their data will be used across all of the company’s products.
“Google must now amend their privacy policy to make it more informative for individual service users. Failure to take the necessary action to improve the policies compliance with the Data Protection Act by 20 September will leave the company open to the possibility of formal enforcement action.”