Private sector, rather than public/state sector. I guess there's ambiguity in the terms here - It's publicly traded, sure, but it's not a government or state-owned entity.
I'm not sure that assumption is particularly valid.
The only response I've ever had from them on the issue was "our contract with google says it gets anonymised". This puts a lot of trust in Google not to use all the tasty data that is being sent, and they made no claims that the data remains in-country or under their control.
I'm probably just as skeptical of those pesky private-sector foreigners as you are. But I don't expectations of domestic government-controlled entities being any better.
The UK government can pass laws and use contracts to legally safeguard the data, if they want to.
It's not that I expect government to be better, but I wish it was, and I wish the technical and project people building these systems took this stuff more seriously.
I'm not sure that assumption is particularly valid.
The only response I've ever had from them on the issue was "our contract with google says it gets anonymised". This puts a lot of trust in Google not to use all the tasty data that is being sent, and they made no claims that the data remains in-country or under their control.