Google’s new privacy policy came into effect yesterday, despite warnings it might violate the European Union’s data protection rules.

The change means private data collected by one Google service can be shared with its other platforms including YouTube, Gmail and Blogger. Civil rights campaigners have warned that people are “in the dark” about how Google’s new privacy policy could affect them.

Nick Pickles, director of privacy and civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch, warned that not enough had been done to ensure users were aware of what the changes meant for them.

But the EU’s data protection authorities are concerned about the privacy effects of the policy and have asked French regulator CNIL to investigate.

CNIL said its “preliminary analysis shows that Google’s new policy does not meet the requirements of the European Directive on Data Protection”.

In a letter posted on its website, CNIL said Google’s explanation of how it will use the data was too vague and difficult to understand “even for trained privacy professionals”.

Google have said they are happy to discuss any concerns over the changes.

Peter Fleischer, Google’s global privacy counsel, said: “Over the past month we have asked to meet with the CNIL on several occasions to answer any questions they might have, and that offer remains open.

“We are committed to providing our users with a seamless experience across Google’s services, and to making our privacy commitments to them easy to understand.”

But Mr Pickles said there needed to be more transparency from companies such as Google on how they used customers’ personal information. He said: “The impact of Google’s new policy cannot be understated, but the public are in the dark about what the changes actually mean.

“Companies should not be allowed to bury in legal jargon and vague statements how they handle our personal information and it is very positive that the Article 29 Working Group are seeking to ensure consumers understand what the detail of Google’s new privacy policy means.

“If people don’t understand what is happening to their personal information, how can they make an informed choice about using a service?”

A coalition of European and US consumer advocacy groups made a last-ditch appeal to Google on Wednesday to delay changes to its privacy policies. In a joint letter to Google chief executive Larry Page, the Trans Atlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) urged Google to delay implementation of the changes.

“On March 1, you propose to combine data from all of your services, provided by your users in very different contexts and for very different reasons, into a single profile without user consent and without any meaningful opportunity for users to opt-out,” the TACD letter said.

Google announced in January it was revising its privacy policies and changing how it uses data from users of its services to provide more personalised search results and advertisements. The company said the changes are designed to improve the user experience across the various Google products.

What you should know

• With the new policy, Google is collecting and storing personal data from user e-mail and social accounts like Google+, Gmail, and YouTube, meaning Google will remember likes and dislikes, as well as the likes and dislikes of a user’s social circles. It will use this information to personalise search results and paid advertisements.

• There are various types of data collected. First of all, it collects personal information such as a user’s name, e-mail address and telephone number.

• Device information refers to the type of computer the user is logging into their account from, the device’s operating system version and mobile network information.

• Log information – when someone uses Google services or views content provided by Google, they automatically collect details such as search queries; telephone log information like phone number, time and date of calls, duration of calls; device event information such as crashes, system activity, hardware settings, browser type, browser language; and cookies that uniquely identify browsers and Google Accounts.

• Location Information – location-enabled Google services process information about the user’s actual location from GPS signals sent by a mobile device or sensor data from the user’s device that may provide information on nearby Wi-Fi access points and cell towers.

• The placement of a business website will vary according to the user’s personalised search. For marketers this means it will be easier to reach a target audience.