Update: Google Responds to Criticism by UK Member of Parliament
Conservative Member of Parliament for Haltemprice and Howden David Davis wrote an op-ed in theTimes about privacy and health data, which strongly criticized Google. Among Davis’s comments: “Google is the last company I would trust with data belonging to me. In the words of human rights watchdog Privacy International, Google has ‘a history of ignoring privacy concerns.’”
Google’s Global Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer responded to the criticism in a blog post:
Mr Davis’ argument is based on something of a straw man, given that Google Health, our health records product, is only available in the US, and we have no immediate plans to bring it to other countries. But given that he goes on to attack our Street View product as a “high-handed” intrusion on privacy, assert that we do not respect European privacy law, argue we have entered into “an amoral deal with China,” and attribute our economic success to “legally unfettered use of personal data”, we wanted to set the record straight. [...]
Allegation: Google is “hostile to privacy.”
We were the first company in our industry to anonymise information when people conduct searches. We took the US government to court when we were asked to hand over large amounts of data to them. Like all of our products, Street View was built from the ground up to respect user privacy. The imagery is not real time. We automatically blur faces and vehicle number plates, and we make it easy for people with concerns to have their homes removed from Street View if they wish. In the months since Street View launched in the UK, tens of millions of people have found it a useful and interesting tool, whether for exploring a tourist destination, finding a restaurant or checking driving directions. [...]
We’re proud of our track record of protecting user privacy. We work hard to make sure our users understand what data we collect and how we use it, because we are committed to transparency and user choice. The important work of education is made more difficult by polemicists who abuse the truth. We are happy to debate our privacy record or policies anytime, but we’d rather that debate was based on fact not fiction.
The full response is on Google’s European Public Policy blog.
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