Google Street View Raises Privacy Concerns

Pcol writes "The New York Times is running a story about a woman who says her cat is clearly visible through the living room window of her second-floor apartment using Street View and that she has contacted Google asking that the photo be removed. 'The issue that I have ultimately is about where you draw the line between taking public photos and zooming in on people's lives,' Ms. Kalin-Casey said in an interview. 'The next step might be seeing books on my shelf. If the government was doing this, people would be outraged.' Wired has started a contest on the most interesting photos found using the new Google Tool that now includes sunbathing coeds, alleged drug deals, and the google van itself. 'I think that this product illustrates a tension between our First Amendment right to document public spaces around us, and the privacy interests people have as they go about their day,' says Kevin Bankston, a staff lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation."

Comments

not just her cat

[miowpurr]

By protesting that much about a photo, she now has her name and address (not just her cat) blasted all over the web. If she had said nothing, possibly it would have all blown over.

Old news...

[BubFranklin]

Many other companies have been doing this for realestate industry for years...

Also, copyright law states (IANAL) that you can take pictures of people in their homes from the street. Only no zooming, and with (I think) a 55mm lens at best. Look up the case law. The only think I think that may be challenged in court is if high res photos at 55mm constitutes some kind of new zoom...

"Best Urban Images"

[doubleofive]

The Wired blog mentioned in the article has some really good pictures on it:

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/05/request_f or_urb.html

No it isn't.

[sglider]

It were perfectly reasonable if Google were on her property when the photos were taken (they weren't).

It'd be perfectly reasonable if her blinds were closed (which would lend credence to them 'invading' her privacy)

But it isn't even remotely reasonable because she keeps her blinds open! If you don't want someone to take pictures of you, or see you doing the nasty, or anything else inside your house, close your blinds, otherwise you have no expectation of privacy, either from the government, or from your fellow citizens.

Re:No it isn't.

[bigmouth_strikes]

> But it isn't even remotely reasonable because she keeps her blinds open!

No, no, no. You can't be expected to be living out of a dungeon (or in your parents' basement if that sounds more familiar for /.ers) in order to not have people documenting your personal life. People outside may and should also be expected to see some of what goes on inside your house if you have an easily accessible window, but documenting what goes on in there and furthermore making it available to others, is not OK.

Interestingly enough, this sort of thing makes "regular" people the victim of what celebrities have had to endure increasingly for a long time. I'm sure there are many readers of tabloids enjoying the latest mega-zoom-lens pictures of Jennifer Aniston eating her bagel in bed, whilst complaining that the Google-van is invading the oh-so sacred privacy when taking pics from the streets.

Re:No it isn't.

[enjahova]

If you live in America, you'd be surprised what you can get away with. There are very few privacy laws on the books, and the ones that are there are on the state level. Ever wonder why paparazzi still have jobs? Because there are no laws against taking pictures of people that are in your line of site. Don't you think with all the money celebrities have they could have hired a decent lawyer by now?

Most laws that might defend some of your privacy are not intended to protect your privacy, but rather your wallet. You can sue the crap out of someone for using your image/likeness (thats why TV shows always have those waivers) especially if its for a commercial purpose.

I challenge you to find those laws you are talking about. I would be willing to bet if you walked down the street taking pictures through peoples windows, and the police got called on you the only thing that would happen is they would tell you to stop. Maybe worse if you look like a terrorist ;)

Technology is rapidly changing our whole environment. You may notice from observing people that they hate it when their own privacy is violated, but they will violate someone elses privacy in a heartbeat. What happens when everybody (not just your big brother) has cameras and access to the internet? Well, the definition of privacy will change. It has already changed quite a bit, ignoring the big brother surveillance going on, we can look at facebook and myspace. People over 40 generally don't go near these sites because they feel like it would violate the hell out of their privacy, yet students and youngsters use these sites to broadcast their lives to the internet everyday. A lot of slashdotters mourn the loss of privacy with stories about governments and organizations using technology to invade our lives, but sooner rather than later we are going to see our brothers and sisters have the capability to do the very same.

Personally, I think its quite exciting to see how we will adapt to the changing environment. Has anyone ever talked to an old person (over 60) that hates cell phones, or only carries one during the day because they feel like they have no privacy if they carry it at all times? We picked up cell phones like they were there all along, and I believe we will do the same with cameras+gps+internet.

i could've told you what kind of cat she has...

[Anonymous Coward]

the pictures show what anyone driving down the street would see. there aren't any privacy concerns because the pictures don't contain anything private- i know this may come as a shock to the mental midget in TFA, but glass is transparent.

this is only news-worthy because it has a couple buzzwords like "google" and "privacy concerns". meanwhile, the people who are actually tapping your phone/internet traffic/watching you continue to perpetrate *horrendous* privacy violations, and nobody cares because of watered-down crap like this. if we're going to be morally outraged by something, let's pick something actually scandalous, m'kay?

Re:Privacy

[spyrochaete]

If you have nothing to hide, who cares?

That's almost precisely the same line the Bush administration used to justify residential wiretapping. You're playing with fire there. People should have the right to privacy in their own homes. I say it's okay for Google to photograph a house's exterior, but not the interior.

"Coeds"?

[jon_anderson_ca]

Offtopic, I know, but "sunbathing coeds"? As in "sunbathing students of both genders" or as in "sunbathing women"? Why do we refer to women like they're anomalies at academic institutions?

At my school, we have something like 60% women... should we call men "co-eds"?

Go ahead, mod me down as offtopic, but this kind of thing irks me.

There's a solution to that

[wiredog]

People like me, 42 and overweight, should leave our blinds open at all times. Eventually we'll start showing up in Google Views buck naked.

And that will be the end of google views.

Google can see her, but she can't see Google

[TheNicestGuy]

Everything you can see in the picture would have been just as visible if you were walking down the street and happened to look up.

A true statement and a valid point, but there's a piece missing from the "walking down the street" analogy that seems to be eluding most of us. When a person walks down the street and looks into a home through a street-facing window, it's extremely unlikely that the window is actually a one-way mirror that only allows viewing in. So yes, they can see what's inside, but anyone inside can also see them. Stop and think about that for a moment, because it's a natural check-and-balance mechanism that, in my opinion, should not be left out of these sorts of privacy discussions: While you can't deny other people the right to look at you in public without your permission, it's only fair that you get to look at them at the same time. If nothing else, it's reasonable to at least have the opportunity to know who is looking.

But with Google Street View, or the Zaio Corp. database, or any similar endeavor, you don't get that courtesy. Even if you were lucky enough to spot the camera in the ten to fifteen seconds it was visible, you still don't know how many millions of people just looked into your life at that moment. And don't forget this is Google we're talking about: among other things, the new background checker for lazy hiring managers, who naturally have your home address at the top of your résumé. Suddenly anyone who lives in a Street View-covered area had better:

1. have heard of Google Street View;
2. look up any addresses that people might associate with them on Google Street View;
3. zoom in on every angle to make sure there's nothing that compromises them—and a pox on the first fool who tries to imply you can't be compromised in a snapshot if you're not doing anything wrong;
4. request a takedown from Google on anything they don't like;
5. wait and see how fast Google rushes to put a big gaping hole in their lovely new feature.

For the record, I like Street View. I've been hoping Google would add something like that for some time. But don't gloss over the privacy concerns by equating walking down the street and looking through a window with driving a van down hundreds of streets taking millions of photographs and associating them with street addresses on the world's largest search engine. Only one of these makes your private life public, and it's not the first one.

Re:What I would do...

[The Great Pretender]

But I am sure the police will like it (something about obscenity laws).

You know that brings up an interesting thought. What if someone hangs a 2A0 goatse picture on their wall, or is sitting in the living room jacking off to girls gone wild (thinking about the co-ed discussion further back). Google comes along and shoots it in the street view. So now we can zoom in and see this. Where does this fall?

1) Invasion of privacy

2) Distribution of pr0n by google

3) Public obscenity by the person who's house it is?

(/. caveat:- If you don't like the examples please insert your own, my point is about the various ways of looking at the implications of the situation)