UK Privacy group wants Google Street View shut down
By Dave Parrack
It seems that whenever Google launches its Street View feature of Google Maps in a new area, someone has a problem with the technology. Just a week after Street View launched in the UK, a privacy group has made a formal complaint to the British government and asked for the service to be shut down.
March 19, 2009 saw Google Street View launch in the UK. Initially, 25 cities were included, including London, Manchester, and Edinburgh. There was immediately complaints made, with Google being asked to remove many images over concerns they contained identifiable people, people in compromising situations, and even nudity.
Google has an efficient system in place to deal with these take down requests, and most of the offending images are removed within hours of the complaint being received. However, this hasn’t stopped a UK privacy group making a formal complaint to the Information Commissioner and asking that Street View be shut down while the service is investigated.
According to BBC News, the lobby group Privacy International has cited 200 reports from members of the public who were identifiable on Street View. PI’s director Simon Davies stated that the complaint had been made owing to the “clear embarrassment and damage” Street View had caused to many people.
This isn’t the first time PI has got on Google’s case over Street View. Last July, when the Google camera cars started compiling the data which has now been published, Privacy International asked for clarification over the technology being used and threatened to go to the Information Commissioner.
Google responded, and then so did the ICO, the latter giving the former a green light from a legal point of view. Reasons stated for Street View being perfectly fine were the length of time between the capture and publishing of images, and that while individuals are visible, Google isn’t directly taking images of them, merely the streets they are located in.
Personally speaking, I think this whole thing is hooey. For starters, Great Britain is full of CCTV cameras meaning the idea of any individual having privacy lapsed a long time ago. Secondly, the massive delay between capture and publishing, rather than the images being real-time and updated regularly, means Google is merely capturing a moment in the past. Thirdly, Google makes it very simple to report an image, and then works tirelessly to remove it from the Internet if it’s deemed to be unsuitable.
I’m glad there are groups such as Privacy International in existence, but I can’t help thinking there are bigger battles they could be fighting. Google Street View is an easy target, but the majority of us love having the opportunity to see a street level view of our cities.
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March 25th, 2009
What a bunch of pointless hooah by these PI weenies. If they think ANYONE has (or even SHOULD have) an expectation of privacy when walking down a public street, perhaps they should return the tin foil beenie to their heads and retreat back into their bunkers.