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MPs are set to hold a meeting this afternoon to discuss Google’s threat to individual privacy.
The Backbench Business Debate, which was called by Conservative Harlow MP Robert Halfon, follows the revelation that Google Street View cars have been collecting data from UK wi-fi connections.
Information harvested included email addresses, passwords and emails themselves.
"I believe we’re potentially sleepwalking into a privatised surveillance society. Ordinary people have no protection against big companies on the internet – as the recent Street View fiasco has shown. I feel very strongly about this, and have been campaigning on it in the House of Commons since I was elected,” Halfon said.
The MP also called on the “lily-livered” Information Commissioner’s Office to do more to protect individuals’ privacy.
"These corporations need to be taught that advancing the technological wonder that is the Internet is one thing. Trampling over the individual’s right to privacy is quite another.
"This Thursday’s debate is the first chance that Parliament will have to hold Google and other internet companies to account."
