"Stephen McCartney played no part in the investigation into the Google Street View project while working at ICO," the organisation said in a statement.

"The published correspondence between Google and the ICO clearly shows that Stephen McCartney was treated like any other organisation's representative, with his emails receiving nothing more than a polite acknowledgement."

The ICO's head of enforcement, Stephen Eckersley, was currently investigating Google's behaviour, the statement added.

Not everyone is happy with that explanation, starting with Conservative MP Robert Halfon.

"This is a pretty shocking revelation. It raises more questions about the Information Commissioner than it does Google because clearly the ICO has been asleep on their watch on this issue. Now it seems they [the ICO] have had a cosy relationship with the company they have been investigating,' he told The Guardian newspaper.