UK’s ICO Watchdog Tells Google To Update Privacy Policy By September 20th Or Else

The NextWeb reports Google is on the hot seat again over its simplified privacy policy that went into effect March 1, 2012.

The Information Commissioner’s Office in the UK has set a deadline of September 20, 2013 for Google to amend the policy to make it easier for consumers to understand how Google will use their data.

The ICO’s statement was released yesterday, and the ICO president said:

We have today written to Google to confirm our findings relating to the update of the company’s privacy policy. In our letter we confirm that its updated privacy policy raises serious questions about its compliance with the UK Data Protection Act.

In particular, we believe that the updated policy does not provide sufficient information to enable UK users of Google’s services to understand how their data will be used across all of the company’s products.

Google must now amend their privacy policy to make it more informative for individual service users. Failure to take the necessary action to improve the policies compliance with the Data Protection Act by 20 September will leave the company open to the possibility of formal enforcement action.

Earlier this month, Google told US Congress that they will not change their privacy policy for Google Glass.

For more on Google and the EU’s battle on this privacy policy, see below:

Related Stories:

• EU Regulators “Plan To Take Action” Against Google Privacy Policy
• Unhappy Google’s Not Changed Privacy Policy, EU Vows Six Individual EU Nations Will Press On
• Google’s Privacy Director, Alma Whitten, Leaving On July 1st
• EU Takes 10 Days To Question Google Privacy Change; After Two Months, Finally Looks At Microsoft’s
• Europeans: Google Privacy Policy Not Illegal But Please Make Some Changes
• Europeans To Ask Google To Change Unified Privacy Policy, Gain User Consent For Data Collection

About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.