Google raises internet privacy concerns

Google is asking for global cooperation to establish international privacy standards

Google's head of privacy is challenging the United Nations to better protect the information of internet users around the world.

Peter Fleischer will outline his concerns today at a meeting of Unesco in Strasbourg, and claimed that Google is addressing the problem now to help set the framework for the internet of the future.

"Three quarters of the countries in the world have no privacy regimes at all, and among those that do have laws many were largely adopted before the rise of the internet," he told The Guardian.

"It is said that every time you use a credit card, your details are passed through six different countries."

Fleischer is expected to tell the Unesco panel that failing to address privacy issues could undermine the internet, especially if the number of cyber-crimes continues to rise.

"A lot of data is being outsourced from Europe and the US to India, for example, but India does not have any privacy regulation," he said.

"Europeans and Americans want to know that their privacy is protected, and Indians themselves, as they come online, will also want these protections."

Google is asking for cooperation between governments and businesses to establish international privacy standards.

The search giant addressed its own privacy practices recently following pressure from the European Union, reducing the amount of time it keeps personal user data to 18 months.