DHAKA: The US Supreme Court on Monday rejected Google Inc’s bid to dismiss a lawsuit accusing it of violating federal wiretap law when it accidentally collected emails and other personal data while building its popular Street View program.

The justices left intact a September 2013 ruling by the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, which refused to exempt Google from liability under the federal Wiretap Act for having inadvertently intercepted emails, user names, passwords and other data from private Wi-Fi networks to create Street View, which provides panoramic views of city streets.

The lawsuit arose soon after the Mountain View, California-based company publicly apologized in May 2010 for having collected fragments of ‘payload data’ from unsecured wireless networks in more than 30 countries.

Google was accused of having collected the data while driving its vehicles through neighborhoods from 2008 to 2010 to collect photos for Street View, reports The Straits Times.

BDST: 2114 HRS, JUNE 30, 2014