Google is cutting the length of time it stores personal data that can identify its users as it tries to appease the European Union watchdog that has questioned its privacy policies.

The internet giant said last night that it will scale back the period it keeps data it harvested from users of its search engine to 18 months, from a previously proposed two years. After that period, information held in Google's vast data-storing server farms will be "anonymised" — meaning it should not be possible to link it to an individual.

In a letter to the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, a group of national data watchdogs that includes the UK's Information Commissioner Office, Peter Fleischer, Google’s global privacy counsel, said: “After considering the Working Party’s concerns, we are announcing a new policy: to anonymise our search server logs after 18 months, rather than the previously established period of 18 to 24 months.”

He added: “We believe that we can still address our legitimate interests in security, innovation and anti-fraud efforts with this shorter period.”

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Mr Fleischer said that any regulations that required Google to keep data for less than 18 months risked undermining its services.

The Article 29 group had previously written to Google asking it to justify its policy of keeping information for two years. Google has said that it will use records of search data to tailor services to individual customers.

Meanwhile, campaign groups such as Liberty have argued that legislation has failed to keep pace with "data mining" technologies, which allow companies such as Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft to process digital information to uncover patterns in consumers' online behaviour.

Eric Schmidt, the search giant’s chief executive, said last month that Google was still at a “very early” stage in terms of collecting personal data through the web. The company does not yet “know enough about you”, he added.

However, Google’s step down comes amid growing concerns over the risk of a creeping culture of corporate surveillance. Apple recently found itself at the centre of controversy when it emerged that the group embeds personal information such as its customers’ e-mail addresses and names into music tracks downloaded from its iTunes store.

Google, meanwhile, recently sparked an outcry online when it unveiled a new feature on its Maps service, which allows users to zoom down to view street-level photographs of several US cities.

Within hours of its launch, bloggers picked out images of people, their faces visible, being arrested, sunbathing and urinating in public.

Google is cutting the length of time it stores personal data that can identify its users as it tries to appease the European Union watchdog that has questioned its privacy policies.

The internet giant said last night that it will scale back the period it keeps data it harvested from users of its search engine to 18 months, from a previously proposed two years. After that period, information held in Google's vast data-storing server farms will be "anonymised" — meaning it should not be possible to link it to an individual.

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