 Images of 25 cities are viewable via Google Street View Google's Street View technology carries a small risk of privacy invasion but should not be stopped, the UK's Information Commissioner has ruled. The technology, which adds photos of locations to maps, sparked complaints it breaches the Data Protection Act. A spokesman for the privacy watchdog said removing the entire service would be "disproportionate to the relatively small risk of privacy detriment". One village in the UK prevented Google from taking photos of the streets. Residents of Broughton blocked the driver of a Google Street View car, which captures the photos, when it tried to enter the village. Police were called after residents staged the protest, accusing Google of invading their privacy and "facilitating crime".
The villagers said the car was intrusive and that residents should have been consulted. Google has always said its service observed UK law and that photos were only taken from public areas. Privacy International had complained to the Information Commissioner along with 74 others, requesting the service be suspended, because some individual's faces were identifiable on Street View. The technology does have automatic face blurring but some individuals were not obscured. Google said it would remove any image on Street View if a request came from a member of the public. Dozens of images were removed from the UK roll out of Street View within days of the service going live. The Information Commissioner's office said Google was acting quickly to remove images.
David Evans, the Information Commission's senior data protection practice manager, compared being captured by the service to passers-by filmed on TV news camera. "It would not be in the public interest to 'turn the digital clock back'," he said. "In the same way, there is no law against anyone taking pictures of people in the street as long as the person using the camera is not harassing people," he said. He added: "In a world where many people Tweet, Facebook and blog, it is important to take a commonsense approach towards Street View and the relatively limited privacy intrusion it may cause." Google should continue to routinely blur images of people's faces and car number plates, he said. The Information Commissioner's Office said it would continue to monitor the service. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8014178.stm | |||
