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.'"

Comments

wrong sense of decency

[nguy]

It's a matter of common decency, not just law. I hate it when people talk as though the law is the only thing we should pay any attention to.

In many countries, I have a legal right to take your picture if you are in a public place, and I also have the right to publish your picture, even against your consent (with some well-defined exceptions, like I can't maliciously and for no reason embarrass you).

I will defend that right. And even in countries where the law may attempt to restrict that right, I may deliberately ignore that law if I think it is the right thing to do, because the freedom to record and document public life and public events is one of the essential freedoms in a democracy.