Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2012/11/20/google_nz_destroys_illegal_data/

Kiwi Googleplex comes clean on unauthorised data

Waves certificate proving it has really, truly, wiped Wi-Fi trove

By Natalie Apostolou

Posted in Security, 20th November 2012 21:52 GMT

The New Zealand Privacy Commissioner has confirmed that Google has finally destroyed the ill-gotten data scooped up from unsecured WiFi networks during its Street View filming across New Zealand.

The antipodean Googleplex had earlier claimed that that it had securely destroyed its payload information, but in early October, following further investigation, unearthed a further disk containing New Zealand and Australian data.

New Zealand Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff said "we're pleased to see the certificate from an independent agency verifying the irretrievable destruction of the New Zealand data."

The Kiwi Privacy Commission has been chasing Google since December 2010 to destroy all the payload information, following the Commission’s findings that Google was in breach of NZ privacy law for hoovering the WiFi information.

In March last year Google produced an independent report verifying that the payload information destroyed, but in July 2012 several international privacy regulators were alerted that the illegally obtained data still existed.

The New Zealand Privacy Commissioner resumed the chase on Google locally which produced the revelation that further data was still in existence. ®