The news of McCartney's role before he left for Google last November came to light made by a member of the public which has been interpreted by some as a conflict of interest.

In July 2010, while McCartney was working for the ICO, the organisation that Street View's possible capture of private user data such as Wi-Fi access point passwords and Mac addresses was not significant.

Embarrassingly, in June this year after a damning report by the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) concluded that Google had not only gathered extensive personal data from its Street View cars but had failed to own up to how much it knew about it.

Criticised for the u-turn, by now McCartney was communicating with his former employer, the ICO, on behalf of his new employer, Google, regarding the same privacy issue.

The ICO's defence is that McCartney was not involved in the 2010 investigation and therefore there was no conflict of interest.