I feel like I’ve written that title out four or five times now, just with a different country doing the banning. Ever since it first launched in the United States, Google Street View has been the subject of bannings and complaints, with many countries and their citizens claiming it harms their right to privacy. Switzerland is the latest country to fall foul of this disease.

Google first launched Street View in May 2007, with the United States the first country to get the street-level photo goodness. Naturally, a couple sued Google over Street View and duly lost the case. Then a whole town took exception to the service, asking to be removed from the app as one.

Then Street View came to Western Europe, and that caused further problems. A privacy rights group claimed Google was breaking U.K. privacy laws but that was found to be a false accusation. However, that didn’t stop the residents of a village from taking the law into their own hands and physically preventing the driver of a Google Street View car from photographing their houses.

Then came Japan, where a group against any form of surveillance claimed Google Street View “constitutes violent infringement on citizens.” Part of the problem was that the height the Street View cameras meant photos were being taken over the shorter fences and walls in heavily populated cities such as Tokyo. Google is currently retaking its pictures in Japan with a camera set lower on the vehicle. Greece also banned Street View outright.

And so we come to Switzerland which, along with Portugal and Taiwan, is one of the latest countries to be given the Street View treatment. According to Ars Technica, Hanspeter Thür, the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC) has accused Google of violating Switzerland’s privacy laws by failing to adequately obscure people’s faces on Street View.

Thür is demanding Google remove Switzerland from Street View entirely until it can ensure it complies with privacy laws in the country. Interestingly, in what is clearly an unconnected case, a Swiss newspaper printed a picture from Street View which showed politician Ruedi Noser walking down the street with an unnamed woman (since identified as his assistant). The fact he was identifiable really doesn’t help Google’s case in this matter.

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Entry was posted on Tuesday, August 25th, 2009 at 1:30 am under Google, Internet, Legal, Technology.

Read more entries by Dave Parrack.
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