Google's fleet of Street View cars are back on UK roads - only this time they don't have the equipment to 'accidentally' collect personal data from unprotected Wi-Fi networks.

Writing in the Google Privacy Europe blog, the company said that the Wi-Fi data harvesting instruments on the cars have been removed and a protocol designed by independent security company Stroz Friedberg is being used to remove the equipment from all Street View cars.

Brian McClendon, vice president of engineering at Google Geo wrote: “The independent security experts Stroz Friedberg have approved a protocol to ensure any WiFi-related software is also removed from the cars before they start driving again.”

Earlier in May, the company had announced that its Street View cars had collected a substantial amount of payload data from unsecured Wi-Fi networks around the world.

The UK ICO has recently determined that Google had broken no laws when collecting data in Britain as the information that was collected could not be traced back to an individual.