BEIJING, Sept. 16 — Google confirmed Wednesday that it fired an employee earlier this year for violating its policies on accessing the accounts of its users.

David Barksdale, a 27-year-old engineer in Google’s Seattle offices, used his position to break into four teenagers’ Gmail and Google Voice accounts, according to media reports.

Google confirmed that it dismissed the engineer in July, but declined to provide details about the incident.

“We dismissed David Barksdale for breaking Google’s strict internal privacy policies. We carefully control the number of employees who have access to our systems, and we regularly upgrade our security controls,” Bill Coughran, Google’s senior vice president of engineering, said in a statement.

“That said, a limited number of people will always need to access these systems, if we are to operate them properly — which is why we take any breach so seriously,” he added.

Analysts say the privacy breach comes at an awkward time for Google. Recently U.S. federal regulators and lawmakers are weighing whether to make Internet privacy rules more stringent — a move opposed by Google and other Internet companies that argue the industry can regulate itself.

Google previously said in a white paper that the company’s hiring process includes criminal background checks. 

On Xinhua Web site: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/sci/2010-09/16/c_13514935.htm