French watchdog requests Google Street View data

France's privacy and data-protection watchdog has become the latest authority to investigate Google over wi-fi and background data the search engine collected through its Street View cars and subsequently failed to delete, despite promises to do so.

The Commision Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) said it had requested the data from Google to conduct further tests on the information captured and held.

An investigation by the authority in 2009 and 2010 found Street View cars operating in France had captured usernames, passwords, login details to dating sites and email messages from people's open wi-fi networks while creating 3D images for the Google service.

CNIL fined Google €100,000 ($A117,000) at the time for privacy breaches and unauthorised data gathering in March last year.

The search giant was ordered to destroy the illegally harvested data In June 2011 but a year later, Google said it still had some of the Street View data in its possession. 

Google has informed other countries in Europe — including Belgium, the Netherland, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Finland, Ireland, Austria and the UK — that it retained the data.

It has offered authorities in those nations the ability to review the data before destruction.

The UK information commissioner has already asked review the data. 

Australia has also been notified by Google.

According to an All Things Digital report, Ireland's Deputy Information Commissioner Gary Davies called Google's actions "clearly unacceptable".