Google's accidental Wi-Fi data collection violated South Korean law, and officials in the country have referred the case to prosecutors.
Specifically, Google broke laws regarding privacy of telecommunications and protecting information about locations, according to an AP report.
The announcement comes about five months after South Korean police raided Google's offices in Seoul as part of its investigation into Google's unauthorized collection of unencrypted Wi-Fi data.
"While we have repeatedly acknowledged that this was a mistake, we believe Google did nothing illegal in Korea, and we are working with the relevant authorities to respond to their questions and concerns," a Google spokeswoman said in a statement. "We have been cooperating with the Korean Communications Commission and the police, and will continue to do so. Again, our ultimate objective remains to delete the data consistent with our legal obligations and in consultation with the appropriate authorities."
In May, Google admitted that its Wi-Fi data collection devices, attached to the top of its Street View vehicles, had inadvertently been gathering data transferred over unencrypted Wi-Fi networks. Google temporarily grounded its Street View cars, and hired an outside firm to conduct a review of the data collection, which could not determine whether personal information was collected.
Google later said that the data was only accessed twice: when the individual engineer who designed the software first created it, and after the glitch was discovered and a security engineer tested the data to verify that this was the case.
"As we have said before, we are profoundly sorry for having mistakenly collected payload data from unencrypted networks," Google continued. "As soon as we realized what had happened, we stopped collecting all WiFi data from our Street View cars and immediately informed the authorities."
In the U.S., the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) closed its investigation because, the FTC said, Google had implemented sufficient changes to its privacy policies and assured government officials that it will delete and not use the collected data. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), however, is still looking into the matter to determine whether or not Google violated the Communications Act.