London:
In what could be called a major security breach, Internet search engine 'Google' has admitted spying on computer passwords and entire emails from households across Britain.
The California-based company has, however, apologized for downloading personal data from wireless networks when its fleet vehicles drove down residential roads taking photos for its Street View project, 'The Sunday Telegraph' reported.
"It's clear from those inspections that while most of the data is fragmentary, in some instances entire emails and URLs (web addresses) were captured, as well as passwords. We want to delete this data as soon as possible, and I would like to apologise again for the fact that we collected it in the first place," Alan Eustace, Google's Vice-President of engineering and research, was quoted as saying.
Millions of Internet users have potentially been affected.
The Information Commissioner's Office, the privacy watchdog, said it would be looking into Google's admission.
Images for Street View were gathered by vehicle-mounted panoramic cameras starting in 2008.
In May this year, Google confessed the vehicles had also been gathering information about the location of wireless networks, the devices which connect computers to the tele-communications network via radio waves.