Google, the search engine company, has violated Australia's privacy laws, according to the country's privacy commissioner. The ruling stems from the company's use of its Street View cars, which were found to have collected personal data from open Wi-fi networks.

"I am satisfied that any collection of personal information would have breached the Australian Privacy Act," said Karen Curtis, the privacy commissioner, in a statement.

"Collecting personal information in these circumstances is a very serious matter. Australians should reasonably expect that private communications remain private."

The commissioner would be unable to introduce sanctions to Google under the terms of the Privacy Act. However, she says that the company must publicly apologize.

In its blog, Google followed the commissioner's ruling. "We have been working with the Privacy Commissioner to support her investigation into what happened. We welcome today's conclusion of this investigation, and as a result we have committed to working even more closely with them going forward on the privacy implications of our product launches... We want to reiterate to Australians that this was a mistake for which we are sincerely sorry. Maintaining people's trust is crucial to everything we do and we have to earn that trust every single day. We are acutely aware that we failed badly here." the company said.

The Australian Federal Police have launched a separate investigation into the company's collection of Wi-Fi data.