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EU Says Google Street View Violates Privacy

Posted by kdawson on from the watch-where-you-point-that-thing dept.

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."

5 of 300 comments (clear)

  1. Photos in public by JoshuaZ · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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?

    1. Re:Photos in public by ashitaka · · Score: 3, Interesting

      This is why a huge portion of Tokyo including the street where I used to live is no longer covered by Streetview. The wall outside our landlord neighbour's house is about 2m high. I couldn't see over it when walking by it but the Google pics when they were up it was easy to see into their living room. Most Japanese urban houses are less than 2 meters from the road. In these cases you are able to see what someone walking would not, hence the application of laws related to unnatural viewpoints.

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      If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
  2. Re:Police is investigating it too by megamerican · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Future quote from Eric Schmidt, Google CEO:

    "If you have something that you don't want anyone to see, maybe you shouldn't have it in the first place."

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    If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
  3. Re:Screw the EU's privacy concerns by Nuskrad · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Retaining the DNA of innocent people and using stop and search powers without reasonable suspicion are two areas that come to mind, the UK government has been successfully prosecuted in the ECHR but has yet to comply with the rulings

  4. Re:Screw the EU's privacy concerns by TheLink · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm guessing it's because the UK has lots of cameras especially in cities. London has thousands of CCTVs.

    But of course that's different because the public don't get to see those camera recordings.

    And they go conveniently blank/missing:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Charles_de_Menezes#Missing_CCTV_footage

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