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EU Says Google Street View Violates Privacy
upto0013 notes the latest spot of trouble for Google in Europe: the EU says that Google's Street View images violate privacy laws. The EU's privacy watchdog asked Google to notify cities and towns before photographing (Google says it does this already) and to delete original photos after 6 months (Google keeps them for a year and says it has reason to do so). "[T]he privacy official] said that the company should revise its 'disproportionate' policy of keeping the original unblurred images for up to a year, saying improvements in Google's blurring technology and better public awareness would lead to fewer complaints — and a shorter delay for people to react to the photos they see on the site. Complaints about the images put online would usually be checked against the original photos."
There's criminal investigations in Finland about Google Street view too, after a man was photographed nude in his back porch and another case when an underaged girl was photographed nude in beach and put in the Street view.
"...improvements in Google's blurring technology"
I love when governments make statements like this.
"Fix this techy thing we have no idea about and make it better. Should be easy right?"
You know, the EU has a lot of nerve coming down on google for "privacy violations"; the same body who seems to have exactly no problem at all with Britain's blatant and constant violations, and they've actually been a MEMBER of the EU since 1973.
All politics, no substance, this. Moot, meaningless, next.
I really don't see the philosophical or policy basis for seeing this as something which privacy laws should prohibit. What is visible in public should be photographable to the public. If I can see it with my eyes without violating a law, why shouldn't I be able to photograph it? And if I can do it for individual photos why shouldn't Google be able to do it systematically?
It's not like they are photographing the insides of peoples houses. They are photographing the streets and outsides of peoples houses. So unless they are hopping over walls of gated communities we are talking public spaces here. I must be missing something here, cause I don't get it! I can understand inside your house is your place, but outside your house is public space. Well unless they have to drive up a private driveway to get pictures of the driveway and if that is the case, it should be marked private property.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
At least they dont do like the authorities: "Hey, do you have something to hide?"
Please try to come up with something more important than this! This absolutely rediculous because publishing a photo in a newspaper could also be an infringement of privacy!
Yes there are privacy concerns with Google, but please take some bigger issue asociated with Google than this!
Yes I am a big fan of Google. Yes I am using their services. No, I am also concerned about privacy when it comes to Google, just as much as any other info-indexing service..
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Here be signatures
I've got friends in public spaces where the squirrels jump and a dog chases those cats away. No blur afforded to their faces, and Google watches them tie their shoelaces.
Oh, I've got friends in puuuublic spaces!
"Ok, my fellow Europeans, we're done milking Microsoft for now. Who else do you know that rakes in over 6 billion greenies a year ? Hit them with a 10 digit, boys !"
They could do two passes on places and use the double collected data in order remove people and other movable things. I think this is and practically theoretically feasible.
Lets talk fines now
What a difference it is to hear about a government (or quasi-government) fight for the privacy rights of citizens.
Here in the Land of the Free, we've just about given up that right. Thanks Osama, you motherfucker. You too, Bush.
Privacy "watch dogs" in the UK are concerned, but the 300 CCTV cameras per block aren't a problem?
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Street view violates privacy but all of the various cameras around used by the police, and body scanners at airports, don't? WTF?
Driving or walking by and seeing something is one thing. But being able to "see" via a computer database is another. Why? Because it allows the tying in of other data instantaneously and it enables the viewer to make connections, insights, conclusions, prejudices or whatever that would not be possible by the casual looker.
Here's a precedent: the collection of data by the credit bureaus.
In the beginning, those organizations were designed to allow for easy credit - before you needed letters of recommendation and references. Now, that data is included by ChoicPoint/Lexus Nexus and now everyone is doing background checks on people - because it's so damn easy now. Nothing to hide and you're OK? Ha!
When you go for a job, for example, even if the position has nothing to do with handling money, the employers do a credit check at the minimum. Bad credit or a lot of debt, say from student loans, you are denied a position. Basically you are denied employment for getting an education. The same goes for flying - a lot of debt raises a yellow flag with the TSA - extra screening! Auto insurance. HEALTH insurance! Cell plans. The list goes on some more.....
The more information that's collected, the more people with access to that information have to use against you. That's the reality of life these days.
Maybe google streetview cars should somehow make people aware they are snapped. Some form of a constant loop from a loudspeaker. Something like "All your from street visible base are belong to us" or just some other recognizable sample? On the other hand ... if the offended people did not check their own address in streetview it is their own fault.
So the UK government can spy on their own citizens without restriction, but if Google does then it is evil?
Surely I am not the only person living in the EU that sees Google Street Maps as a liberating technology. I have searched for countless things from my office and my home, and each time came away favourable with Street Maps. I think the EU is wrong on this one. What exactly are the dangers that they foresee with this technology?
Does the second link 404 for anyone else too?
Whatever it is, it's notablog.
I live in google town and not once did I hear of notification.
Claiming public awareness is big for any company. Quite bold.
I have a feeling the EU won't like it.
All rites reversed 2010
Will those moron politicians also complain about tourist showing their picture if other people appear on them? Will they force tourist to delete their pictures after six month? This is what happen when you have a bunch of idiots feeling they have to do something and they end up doing worse than nothing.
Dear
Maybe we should ban satellites from taking pictures too. I mean, some of them images contain images of me, my house, and my car. This should also include private satellite images, as if anything I trust the private hoarding of images by corporate or government bodies much more damaging than a publicly available resource.
Or we could just accept that there shouldn't be a problem with images of public space in the first place...
Don't take the above poster too seriously. He doesn't.
Man, I've heard it all now. The UK has more cameras per person than the Stasi had, and these arseclowns actually made this statement? Hypocrisy off the scale on this one.
...Schmidt would have been fuckin' knighted for this.
Swedish mapping website Hitta.se has a feature similar to Street View, but with higher resolution and they do not even blur faces.
The UK government can store my data, within a lot of areas they track me constantly with CCTV, they want to look at my genitals when I fly and then there's Echelon. Quite frankly Google Street View is the least of my concerns.
Google threatens to pull out of EU
This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
120. Scope of exclusive rights in architectural works (a) Pictorial Representations Permitted. — The copyright in an architectural work that has been constructed does not include the right to prevent the making, distributing, or public display of pictures, paintings, photographs, or other pictorial representations of the work, if the building in which the work is embodied is located in or ordinarily visible from a public place. http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#120
I think the general question of how to treat observations made using specialised equipment that can detect more than a human alone is a tricky one, and something that privacy laws are going to have to confront head-on as technology improves. In Streisand's case, it was a plane, but anything from a satellite looking down onto private property to a listening device that can pick up private conversations inside another building would prompt the same question, as indeed does using the Google camera van here.
If the observation is incidental and does not reveal anything sensitive (which is a subjective judgement you'd have to make on a case by case basis) then I tend to take the view of "no harm, no foul".
However, I think it is reasonable to expect anyone using equipment with the potential to invade privacy to act with due respect for others. As far as I'm concerned, that means all of:
For example, you've probably gathered that I have no sympathy for Google here, because it is obvious that mounting a camera up high enough to see over walls into people's back yards is going to upset some people and will almost inevitably capture some moments that were intended, and reasonably expected, to be private. Even if you stretch to arguing that this was the first time anyone tried anything like this and Google didn't realise what might happen, that defence doesn't stand up at all if they continue to capture more pictures in the same way after complaints about the early observations start coming in and the safeguards are known to be inadequate.
Had the Streisand case involved paps with telephoto lenses flying past, snapping photos of a party where personal friends were sunbathing in a revealing state that they would normally have expected to be private, then as far as I'm concerned it would have been fair to lock up the paps and anyone else who knowingly incited or profited from the photography for as long as any copy of the photos was found to be in circulation.
In reality, AFAIK, the Streisand incident only involved photography from a distance that neither was intended to reveal nor did in fact reveal anything personally sensitive, so "no harm, no foul" applies in that case IMHO.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
can't believe they didn't find the solution yet... it's so easy.
Maybe Google could comply with shorter retention times, but Google's not the only company providing similar services.
For example there's a street view like website which for the historic centre of Venice (not covered by Google) who is published by the municipality of Venice in collaboration with a smallish Italian company (http://maps.veniceconnected.it/en). Is the EU going to force the town council to shut down the website? I doubt that a small company or a town can afford new picture-taking campaign twice per years.
This policy isn't just senseless, it's dangerous and anti-competitive.
Streetview is a good tool, but with any mass data collection you need to strike a balance.
There is nothing wrong with watching a street, but people/cars should be blurred, and that was effectively what Google promised to do, also in Switzerland, only that they didn't do it well enough, and the retention of such material must be explained.
What I positively do NOT like about Streetview is that it offers to zoom in on windows - that really is invasive. In addition, they have the problem that they take pictures from an elevated viewpoint. I can understand why (try looking over parked cars otherwise), but people build fences for privacy, and they thus ended up with problems in privacy concious countries like Japan and Switzerland.
As a matter of fact, I remarked at the time that I didn't find it surprising the Switzerland asked questions - I found it amazing no EU regulator had done the same. Now I know why - they weren't exposed to the issues yet. Now they are, and thankfully they are asking the same questions.
I personally hope Google will pay attention, because addressing this intelligently would do much to address the privacy worries Google is creating. I don't think there is malice involved, it's more a culture clash, and IMHO it can be resolved with a bit of thinking.
Insert
Mods, the facts are that the European Courts have mandated a stop or serious modifications to the following:
- Terror laws that allow arrests without warrants and without allowing the accussed to know what the accustaions are (doh! only former Comunists don't se a problem with this, as are several members of the Labour party. What a surprise).
- Stop collecting DNA of innocent people when arrested (the UK police can take your DNA for pretty much whatever they want whenever you interact with them, the EU courts are mandated this to be stopped, the government has not complied).
and several others.
300 per block, WTF? +5 Insightful, WTFF?
I live in a big city (160,000 people) in England. There are just 59 cameras monitored by the local police, and they are monitored by one person. I live just over a mile from the city centre, and none of them are within a mile of where I live.
For 9 months they weren't even monitored at all on the night shift, as no-one could be found to fill the position. The locations are published.
I'm happy with that - most of the cameras are near the worse nightclubs that tend to have trouble outside some weekends, and taxi ranks where people might be waiting on their own late at night. They put them where people want them.
My theory is that someone (who had a point to make or an axe to grind) counted all the CCTV cameras in a particular small area - general security cameras on/in offices, in hotel receptions, in shops, cameras that just measure average traffic speeds for GPS congestion avoidance, car parks and so on. They then took that number, multiplied it by the area of the country, and ignored the fact that 99%+ are nothing to do with government or police, to make whatever point they were trying to make. No doubt some imbecile published it (Daily Mail I wouldn't be surprised to hear) and made it out to be a fact and a huge problem, people repeated it and so it became an urban legend.
And don't you ever! EU ( nee EC ), Japanese citizens use StreetView to plan, sightsee, research the USA via Google Maps StreetView. That would be hypocrisy. Yeah right.