With Google’s Street View fleet having drawn the ire of the people and privacy advocates in the UK by unlawfully and inadvertently collecting personal data by intercepting WiFi networks, the privacy practices of the Internet search giant have been under the scanner of the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

Officials from the ICO inspected Google’s records as well as interviewed its staff on handling the UK Street View service last month; and found that “reasonable steps” had been taken by Google “to improve its privacy policies” ever since the details of the company’s contentious privacy practice that emerged in April 2011.

Google had admitted its collection of the private data “inadvertently” after an engineering error in software designed for mapping the locations of WiFi networks, and had given the assurance in October that it will delete the data and reform its privacy policies.

Expressing satisfaction over the efforts that Google has been taking, Information Commissioner Christopher Graham said that “Google has made good progress in improving its privacy procedures following the undertaking they signed with me last year.”

With an ICO document noting that the audit substantiated the fact that Google had made improvements to its internal privacy structure, privacy training and awareness and privacy reviews, Graham said that the audit was “not a rubber stamp” and that all the commitments that Google gave to office “have been progressed.”