Slashdot Mirror
Google's Street View Meets Resistance In France
Ian Lamont writes "Google has begun to scan the streets of Paris as part of its Street View service, but the company may be hindered from publishing them unedited. The reason? French privacy laws. Google may be forced to blur faces or use low-resolution versions of the photographs. The Embassy of France in the US has a page devoted to French privacy laws, that says the laws are needed to 'avoid infringing the individual's right to privacy and right to his or her picture (photograph or drawing), both of them rights of personality.'"
Or in this case, Paris. The law is the law, and Google need to respect the local laws. They do it in China, with their censored Google, so I can't imagine them putting up too much of a fight against French privacy laws.
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
So if you break US IP law in a country like say, Australia, you can be extradited and shipped for trial/prosecution in the US. But you have no problem with breaking French law by placing the servers inside the US?
IE - USA! USA! USA! We'll do whatever we want, only when it suits us.
Those days are over, mon ami.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
" Google's Street View Meets Resistance in France"
...) to obey American laws on the American soil (e.g. Washington D.C.)
It is not resistance, it is the french law.
As a French citizen, I find the Slashdot title offensive.
Paris is the capital of a free sovereign country, France, which has its own Constitution and legal system, which is not the US ones!
The title implies that american law should prevail everywhere! No! France is not a US colony.
I am sure that most american (& french) citizens would expect French coorporations (e.g. Thales, Air Liquide,
Why should it be different for Google (an american coorporation) in France?
exactly. we Frenchmen have seen the pictures of Americans taking a piss in these Google pictures. According to French law, a citizen owns the right to control how his/her image is used. Don't mind us if we have respect for ourselves.
~~~ Paf. Le chien.
it's good to know that like everything else in the US, your own image has a price. A pretty low price. That you're only given if you're willing to fight.
~~~ Paf. Le chien.
I don't understand this French law thing. Let me see if I can get it straight...
If I'm walking down a public street in Paris, I assume I'm allowed to look at other people, and be looked at by other people. If I have a camera with me I assume I'm allowed to take pictures, as I do not, and no one else, has any expectation of privacy. You're on a public street.
Now if I publish those photos, given that any person viewing the images could have just as well been there at the scene at the time I took the images and seen it for themselves without violating anyone's privacy, I assume that there's no violation of privacy there either.
Thus we find ourselves in Google's situation. So what is the privacy problem here?
If they were to pick a person at random and use that person in advertising in a way that made it seem the person was endorsing something, then that shouldn't really be allowed unless the person actually does endorse the product and agreed to be represented as such. But that's not happening here.
If the person had some reasonable expectation of privacy, such as walking around a gym locker room in the buff, or in a public restroom, or in their own home or on private property not viewable from a public area, that would be different. Doesn't seem like that's happening here either.
Where is the big ethical problem here? I just don't see it.
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
The trend, and the goal, is to be able to read more people, at greater distance. We don't know how far this technology can go, but some of the things already being tested are capable enough to give one pause. If you are not allowed to think unauthorized thoughts (to question the state; to remember a song without paying royalties), do you have a personality? Do you have free will? It seems to me that at that point, consciousness would be a curse.
Gene Wolfe wrote, I believe in Soldier of the Mist, that "A man without a sword is a slave." I would contend that today it's more relevant to say that a man without privacy is a prisoner; a man without private thoughts is a slave.
It's nice to know that some places still maintain the concept of a right to privacy.
How is that an interesting idea or even relevant? Taking pictures of a home or something is one thing, identifying who it belongs to is another. Google isn't giving you the ability to click on a home and get the details of whose inside. Nice job trying to instigate though. You get a C for effort.
"There is no real right or wrong, just what the majority accepts at the time."
The French are crazy when it comes to photography; it's the only place where I have ever experienced hostility towards street photography. For a country for which tourism is so important, that just seems stupid. The notion that your image is public when you're in a public location (barring a few exceptions) seems to be fine, but the French seem to assume that they can stroll along with their mistresses and be safe from accidental embarrassment.
My conclusion? Avoid France for tourism, and publish the pictures I took anyway. So sue me.
I would/will find it useful if/when it covers German cities. I'm not a native of this country (or Europe, or even the Northern Hemisphere for that matter) and sometimes a map just isn't enough. The satellite view on Google Maps is handy, but still not quite good enough, since rooftops can look quite different to the view from below.
The problem comes when I have a hard time identifying something that I see with my own eyes as being a street or not. That's a lot more common than you'd think here! Especially near the centre of large cities.
If I had streetview to help, I would know it's "the first big red brick building on the left after the pretty looking church, just across the road from that department store where I bought my shoes", which is a lot more handy than a point on a map!
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What does this mean? Privacy is an illusion? Should we dismiss this old fashioned concept?
Respect for other people will never be an outdated concept.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
You don't actually have permission to take photos of any faces in public.
Bullshit.
The big ethical problem is that if there aren't these controls on how your photo/voice/identity is used, then people get exploited.
The only "ethical problem" is if nitwits want to restrict the public's right to document public events in public places. That's a threat to our democracy, not because people are desperate to document your bad hair day or lack of style, but because those restrictions could be used by individuals and corporations to prevent the release of embarrassing but information of public interest on them.
In many countries, you are not even permitted to photograph the front lawn of someone's private residence, even though it is the 'public face' of his home.
Well, that may be the case in North Korea, but I can't think of any democracies where that's the case.
Not everybody wants their stuff photographed, thank you very much.
If you are in a public place in a country that doesn't specifically prohibit it, you're fair game to be photographed and published on the web; I don't give a damn if you want to or not. And if there is a compelling interest to photograph you, I'll do so even in countries where there are laws against it.
Wait one minute. There is public street and privacy.
Let say that you take a picture of a street full of apartments. (This is the case in Paris) And in one of those shots you happen to take there is a woman changing. Yes the shot is inadvertent, but it is invasion of privacy because the angle of the shot happens to include both the street and the woman.
As the article said:
2. By taking, recording or transmitting, without his or her consent, the picture of a person who is in a private place.
When you are on the street then you are not in a private place, and that I think is not the issue the French are talking about.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"