The Privacy Commissioner, Karen Curtis, has embarrassed Communications Minister Stephen Conroy by playing down the seriousness of Google's Wi-Fi spying bungle.

Authorities all over the world are investigating Google, including the Australian privacy watchdog and Australian Federal Police, for sucking up 600GB of “payload data” from unsecured wireless networks over several years while taking pictures for its Street View mapping service.

Senator Conroy described the move as deliberate and labeled it the “single greatest breach in the history of privacy”. He also claimed personal banking details were hovered up by the search giant.

Curtis is still investigating the debacle but released some preliminary comments to this website.