INTERNET SEARCH and advertising giant Google fired an engineer in July for violating users’ privacy, the firm admitted this week.

The engineer, David Barksdale, was accused of accessing information about teenagers he had met in a Washington state technology group, according to gossip website Gawker, which first reported the incident. Google would not confirm details of the firing.

The breach comes at a time when Google is being scrutinised by various government agencies for its collection of unsecured personal data on wi-fi networks. The data was collected by Google’s Street View cars, which take panoramic pictures. At least one family complained to Google about the engineer.