Google must pay €150,000 fine over Street View data privacy in Belgium, or face court

The aftermath of Google’s Street View cars collecting of data from WiFi signals continues to roll on. Following a record fine from France earlier this year, neighbouring Belgium has offered Google the chance to settle with them over the case for  €150,000.

As Bloomberg reports, the country’s federal prosecutor has stated that Google breached national law when its cars collected personal data from WiFi networks. The company now has three months to accept the deal. If it refuses, a court case may follow, potentially leading to a larger fine and imprisonment. Google told Bloomberg that it would be studying the offer carefully.

In May last year, Google admitted the collection of data from WiFi networks over a three year period, but insisted that it was just “Fragments of payload data,” collected accidentally.

Thus far, we’ve seen investigations from a number governments around the world, as well as legal action in the USA. Google agreed to delete the data, but with this latest move from Belgium, it appears that this is one mistake Google is not going to be able to forget for a long time yet.