Google and Pirate Bay share Friday good news

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has shot down a complaint put forward by Privacy International that Google’s Street View tool breached the Data Protection Act.

In the verdict, the privacy watchdog reinstated its previous supportive position, confirming that the removal of the service would be disproportionate to the “relatively small risk of privacy detriment”.

“It is important to highlight that putting images of people on Google Street View is very unlikely to formally breach the Data Protection Act,” said David Evans, ICO senior data protection practice manager.

“Some football fans’ faces will be captured on Match of the Day and local news programmes this weekend – without their consent, but perfectly legally. In the same way there is no law against anyone taking pictures of people in the street as long as the person using the camera is not harassing people.”

It was only last week that Privacy International director Simon Davies announced he would be shutting down his separate 80/20 Thinking consulting business. 80/20 Thinking had advised a range of technology firms on how best to secure customer data, including AOL and Phorm. Google was never one of the consultancy’s clients.

The closure followed Google stating that Privacy International’s March complaint to the ICO over its Street View mapping tool was an "entirely predictable publicity stunt by an organisation that is far from impartial when it comes to the issue of Google and privacy". In addition, Google pointed to "a conflict of interest" arising from Microsoft’s Casper Bowden being an advisory board member with Privacy International.

Also today, a lawyer representing one of the convicted Pirate Bay operators in one of the world’s most high-profile copyright disputes has called for a retrial.

The Pirate Bay file-sharing site allows internet users to find and exchange files such as films and music. Today it emerged that its operators - Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij and Carl Lundstrom - were given one-year jail sentences by a judge that is a member of two Swedish pro-copyright associations.

Tomas Norström is a member of both the Swedish Copyright Association and the Swedish Association for the Protection of Industrial Property. Swedish attorneys have argued his membership with such organisations, which actually represent a number of entertainment companies involved in the Pirate Bay prosecution, posed a conflict of interest in the case.