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."

Comments

Re:On the other hand

[element-o.p.]

Speak for yourself. I didn't vote for Obama, nor for any of my senators or representatives in Washington, either.

Re:Oh for fsck sake!

[twidarkling]

Multiple angles of person or location doesn't matter. When an individual goes around taking multiple pictures of a building from many angles, you know what it's usually labelled? "Casing a joint." You know, gathering information for robbing it. Street View could potentially remove the need to *visit* a location before robbing it, especially with that page from a few days ago, "Please Rob Me" that links people's twitters and such to location-specific, showing when they're away from home. So yes, it's still privacy infringement. Google takes an "opt-out" position to privacy. That's the wrong way to do it. If they want to put my house up on the Internet for everyone to see, I want to know the *exact* time they're coming through, and I want a release form saying that it's okay to use images of MY property for THEIR gain. Because that's what street view is, exploitation of other people's property for Google's greater financial health.

Re:Police is investigating it too

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

That is Google's problem, not ours. If they can't do what they want while complying with the law, then that's just tough. IMNSHO, there have been way too many free passes and legal loopholes created in recent years to benefit Internet-related businesses that have trouble following the same rules as everyone else. I, for one, welcome our new enforcing-the-law-for-corporations-too overlords.