Google's Eric Schmidt: privacy is paramount

Google chief executive, Eric Schmidt, has defended his company's record on privacy in the wake of the discovery that its Street View camera cars had accidentally recorded data from unsecured domestic Wi-Fi networks, insisting that Google has the "most consumer-centric privacy policy of any service online".

Speaking at Google's annual Zeitgeist Europe forum yesterday, Schmidt dismissed the description of the discovery as a "crisis" and would not say whether any member of staff had been dismissed over the issue. "What really matters is actual harm," he said, repeating that the problem involved a small amount of fragmented data that was not used by the firm in any way.

He was backed up by his co-founder Larry Page, who talked of concern over the much more comprehensive data on Google's logs – which include users' emails and search history. "There is lots of interest in Google's logs, but no one can prove any harm [caused by that data], at least not that I'm aware of."

Google has faced mounting pressure from regulatory authorities over the Street View Wi-Fi controversy, and has been ordered by the UK Information Commissioner's Office to destroy the data.

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