Google calls for global privacy standard

14th September 2007

Google has called for a unified global privacy standard on personal data to be laid out by governments and corporate entities.

The search engine made the call for such a standard when it a representative appeared at a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation meeting in Strasbourg today.

Google global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer said that the internet and globalisation means that personal information is now accessible easily from all over the world.

"Every time a person uses a credit card their information may cross six or seven national boundaries," a BBC report quoted him as saying before the meeting.

In the meeting itself, he was critical of the fact that there is no unified standard of privacy and the fact that many governments make no provision for it all.

He pointed to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Privacy Framework, which includes Vietnam and Australia, as an example of a standard that should be aimed for worldwide.