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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."
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..
.
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 !"
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."
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
Technical incapability isn't an excuse to break laws.
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."
Are you kidding me?! If you are sitting out somewhere where john Q public can walk by and see you in the buff, how much could you possibly really care about your privacy? Hey, if you don't want people to know that you sit naked on your porch, stop doing it! They can see you!
So if the law mandates the impossible, go to jail, do not pass "Go", do not collect €200?
Your line of "thinking" verges on silly.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
I love it when the government writes a law forcing someone else to do something, then the government officials who drafted the law take credit for it. Hilarious! As if those idiots ever did anything other than sit around and talk!
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.
If I remember correctly, that case involved Google's van photographing him over his garden wall, so no, he wasn't clearly visible to anyone just walking by. If you climbed up the garden wall and photographed people without clothes in their private property, you would be breaking law too. Even without even putting them on the Internet for everyone to see.
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.
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?
I see, did they ask the Google to take down the photos and Google refused to comply or something?
Does the second link 404 for anyone else too?
Whatever it is, it's notablog.
Are you insinuating that Google's camera van climbed this guy's fence to photograph this guy in the buff?
What impossible thing is mandated here? EU is just saying Google needs to fix their blurring technology as it violates privacy laws or stop doing what they're doing. If it's not technically possible for Google to automatically blur faces, then they need to hire people to do manual blurring or forget the whole thing in EU area.
Well ...
Married Google chief executive Eric Schmidt has forced his mistress to
remove her personal blog from the web, according to reports. The
54-year-old CEO has been linked to other women in the past and he is
believed to be either separated or in an open relationship with his
wife Wendy.
>>>Technical incapability isn't an excuse to break laws.
No it isn't, but what laws are being broken? Google is taking photos of *public* streets and the nearby view. This is no different than when painters used to sit with their paintings and draw what they saw, or when tourists captured images with their disposable cameras.
You have never had "privacy" outside the walls of your house.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Which means I have to demolish my home ?
No, but you know the camera is on top of the van (and itself quite tall), so it photographs places otherwise not visible. Lets try again: if you climbed on top of a van to photograph private properties otherwise not visible and took pictures of people without clothes there, you would be violating law.
That's pretty much irrelevant. As has been said on /. often enough, once it's posted on the Internet, it's essentially impossible to remove it later*.
*Unless what is posted is the only surviving copy of some piece of data that is critically important to you (your masters thesis, the open source project that was going to make you more famous than Linus, photographic evidence that bigfoot and/or the Roswell aliens actually exist, etc.). Then no matter how hard you look, it won't be cached anywhere.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
Future quote from A Lawyer, EU Chief Privacy Officer:
"No-one is perfect. In the real world, people occasionally make mistakes, and reveal things publicly that they did not expect or intend to share with the world. As you demonstrate no willingness to take this into account, we are imposing draconian laws that basically kill your business model. If your business model dies because many people will find it offensive, maybe you shouldn't have been doing it in the first place."
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
They asked and Google complied, but it doesn't change the fact that it was still against law to do so and then putting it on the Internet (and you know how easy it is to take down something once put on the Internet)
Stupid question, but do they use Euros in European Monopoly?
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
That wooshing noise was the point flying over your head. The burden for preventing such a clear and abusive invasion of privacy should not lie with the potential abusee, and a system where people (or corporations) can invade your privacy and then share the results with the world unless you actively opt out does not scale.
I prefer the approach taken by Japan, where this over-the-wall problem was common given typical Japanese architecture and infringements were widespread, and Google was forced to throw away the lot.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
In what way does any law relevant to this discussion mandate the impossible? The law may make a certain business model unviable, but that is a very different thing.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I live in google town and not once did I hear of notification.
It would be a little more reasonable to say that "If you have something you don't want anyone to see, don't display it in a public area."
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
these people don't. I guess that's why they do it in a subway... But in all seriousness, I don't think these people would complain either.
Even if the law is daft?
What reasonable privacy can you expect in the out-of-doors or with the curtains open?
You don't like people looking into your yard, put up a high fence. You don't want to be on satellite? Sun yourself underneath the porch or a shade. It's the way the world is nowadays and making it illegal won't make the fundamental technology go away.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
If it's not technically possible for Google to automatically blur faces, then they need to hire people to do manual blurring or forget the whole thing in EU area.
Even that might be dubious, since after all real people would still be viewing private images. The fact that they would be Google employees rather than the whole Internet isn't really the point.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
That leads to some interesting legal questions. REALLY interesting ones.
Did he have a reasonable expectation to privacy if his garden wall was shorter than the Google Street View van plus the mast they put the camera on? The sample image on the article shows the street view camera perspective looking to be at least 3 meters high, at a guess. If I took a camera and put a 2-meter stepladder on the sidewalk and took a picture of him from 4 meters off the ground, is that a violation of a reasonable expectation of privacy? I'm in a public place. I haven't climbed his wall.
I mean, he's not visible from street level, but he is visible from a public place, and Google was following the height restriction for vehicles in that area.
On the other hand, Google's image collection is rather outside the normal realm of "visible from the street". It's not that often that 4-meter-high people walk by the front of the house. So the guy who got photographed in the nude may have a valid point.
I'm just glad I don't have to decide something like this, though my decision would probably be for a case-by-case fix. Have Google either remove the single image that contains the guy in question, or retake the photo after telling the guy what day they will be by so he knows not to air out the sausage-and-meatballs on the porch that day.
But even that would have a pretty chilling effect on photographs that are made public, not just by Google but everywhere else. If you caught me picking my nose when you took a vacation snap, and I saw the image online, would I have a valid beef in telling you to take it down? At what point do my rights to privacy overcome your rights to post pictures of your vacation?
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
It's the way the world is nowadays and making it illegal won't make the fundamental technology go away.
Just because we developed guns we should be allowed to use them as we like?
Leaving aside the fact that you are completely wrong and many laws do protect privacy in various ways even outside your own home, Google seems to believe that you also don't have privacy within the walls of your house, if they can mount a very high camera that can see over those walls.
Fortunately, the law appears to disagree with them.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Exactly what I was thinking.
This would double the cost, because every thing would have to be photographed twice and some attempt at synchronizing the location of each shot would be needed, at least to a degree close enough to allow image processing to retain the unchanged bits and remove the cars, people, etc.
Technically possible.
But why do this? People are in publicly viewable areas when photographed. They have no expectation of privacy.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Claiming public awareness is big for any company. Quite bold.
I have a feeling the EU won't like it.
All rites reversed 2010
Were no charges contemplated against these public disrobing?
If not, was it because such is not illegal in a publicly viewable area in these countries?
And if not illegal, then what's the problem here?
How much expectation of privacy does someone have laying on public beach nude or whanking off in full view of the neighborhood?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
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
So Yao Ming, Gheorghe Murean, or Manute Bol would be breaking the law if the walked past this guy's house at the wrong time?
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.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
...don't display your pubic area.
rewriting history since 2109
Could please you cite the law that is being violated? I am pretty sure there are few laws that explicitly state photographing people on their private property from public or another piece of private property is illegal in most contexts.
Sand's overrated... it's just tiny little rocks.
No, but you know the camera is on top of the van (and itself quite tall), so it photographs places otherwise not visible. Lets try again: if you climbed on top of a van to photograph private properties otherwise not visible and took pictures of people without clothes there, you would be violating law.
What if you were sitting on the top level of a double-decker bus? I'm not sure that merely elevating yourself a few feet higher above the street level than most is enough to constitute invasion of privacy. In practice, I think the court would look at intent. If you carried a ladder out there to raise yourself up specifically so you could see over the wall, that would be one thing, but that's not what Google does. Their camera is positioned where it is so that it doesn't take pictures of the van, not so that it can see over walls.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I see, did they ask the Google to take down the photos and Google refused to comply or something?
"Officer, any time I'm speeding, you just let me know and I'll stop doing it, OK? I'm happy to comply."
That's a ridiculously extreme argument. Apply it to every company not just Google and you'll see that doing business is impossible. Perhaps the post office should be banned too, because they can't figure out if you really meant to send the letter or not. I mean damn, I guess we could kiss Slashdot goodbye - who knows if I really intended to hit the submit button?.
I don't know what you're smoking, but your views are FAR from the mainstream on this one.
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.
Why don't you try reading about the cases that have been discussed here? AFAICS, several of them are/were specific criminal prosecutions or court/legislative rulings in their respective jurisdictions, so the laws cited in each case would be the answer to your question.
As for your claim that there are few laws prohibiting this kind of behaviour, quite a few places have a general voyeurism law for a start. Moreover, there are blanket privacy rules such as article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
That's a ridiculously extreme argument. Apply it to every company not just Google and you'll see that doing business is impossible.
It's ridiculously extreme to expect a business to follow the law?
Or to understand that what someone is doing in the grounds of their own home, hidden from normal view by a high wall, should be considered private?
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
when i was a student there was a bus stop outside the house one morning chris woke up flung the curtains open to see the top deck of the bus looking back at him.
Another friend was driving a coal lorry in yorkshire and he was bustin for a dump any way after not finding anywhere he decided to jump in the back of the coal lorry, you know he says thats the first time he ever saw a double decker bus in holmfirth.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
No, but banning them entirely would be silly.
Just because something can be used inappropriately doesn't mean it should be completely banned.
In Google's case, the intent of their stuff is not to violate privacy, and they're not publicizing information that couldn't be otherwise made available - that is, if you wanted to travel to a particular street yourself, and take a 360-degree photo from the same vantage point, you could.
Suppose the guy who was photographed nude lived across the street from an apartment building. Sure, there's no line of sight from the street, but what about from the building across the street? If the across-the-street neighbors call him and ask him to stop running around naked outside (even though he's not visible from the street), should he be allowed to say "tough luck, I have an expectation of privacy"? Should he be allowed to legally force the apartment building to block their windows so they can't see him?
What if one of those across-the-street tenants is running a 24/7 video blog of the view outside his window? Should the nude neighbor be allowed to force the blogger to shut off the video feed just because he wants to go outside naked?
My opinion is, if I'm allowed to legally see something with my eyes merely by standing in a public place, then there can be no danger in photographing or filming it for public consumption.
This issue has implications far beyond Street View.
People in this thread keep referring to "the Google Van." Around these parts, all the Google vehicles that have been spotted have been hybrid sedans (usually a Toyota Prius). The one I've seen in person (also a Prius), the camera mast was 6 to 7 feet off the ground. As a 6'5" individual, that's kinda of my vantage point anyway. I'm glad I didn't walk past that guy's garden wall!
That? That was a pigeon.
If they stopped to take photos over his wall, yes. Likely even if they just stopped and stared. Staring through someone's window, even if you do it from your own house, could be illegal too in some cases. The laws are specifically targeted against peeping toms, paparazzis and the like.
I can't believe the first post didn't say, "This thread is useless without pics."
(It would have been equally funny if that had been the first reply to the actual first post, though far more disturbing.)
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Laws generally do not mandate the impossible. They may however mandate something which in turn makes something that you were trying to do impossible. Thusly, by extension, what you were trying to do is now against the law until you can find a way to get around it.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
So, all they have to do is lower the cameras to ~6 feet AGL?
So never ever mount a camera more than 6' from the ground before taking these kinds of pictures, for fear that otherwise you could be sued because your street-view photo-taking van was too tall?
I'm not saying that's all they have to do, because there are still many other concerns with equating a tool like Street View with a casual observer walking by. But yes, lowering the cameras to a point of view where someone could realistically anticipate an observer being there would be a start.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
...Schmidt would have been fuckin' knighted for this.
you could get a photo of the world without people, cars, or digital road signs.
Swedish mapping website Hitta.se has a feature similar to Street View, but with higher resolution and they do not even blur faces.
Yes.
Dilbert RSS feed
If you are in view of the public there should never be any expectation of privacy. That which is private is never communicated to another person either visually, in print or in spoken words. Maybe we can declare that all people have the right to be caught,embarrassed and humiliated. Frankly a real good dose of public humiliation might be good for a whole lot of people.
"But sir, my business is based on killing for hire, how can I comply with all these anti-murder laws? They must be revoked!"
Dilbert RSS feed
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.
No
Yes
There is a difference between merely seeing and distributing the image to others. Case in point: if you're watching a concert, you are allowed to see it, but you can't videotape it.
Distribution rights can and do have different rules.
Dilbert RSS feed
I'm glad he said "maybe", because even with the "maybe" it's a stupid statement. I've known people with hidden disabilities, how could they help that? Many activities which are perfectly moral and hurt no one are illegal. Many quite legal activities are immoral; e.g., adultery. Why is it legal for me to have consentual sex with my congressman's wife so long as I don't pay her for it?
We all have secrets.
Free Martian Whores!
Ah, but the difference is, the concert is deliberately putting on a show for profit. The neighbor is merely going outside naked, heedless of who may be watching.
I think that's a significant difference.
If the person knows about the across-the-street webcam, he should stop going outside naked.
If I go outside naked, even in my own backyard, and that shows up on a satellite view of my area, I'm not going to raise a ruckus about violated privacy. If I want privacy I won't go outside naked.
I'll say it again: the guy in question should not have gone outside naked if he actually wanted privacy. The presence of a wall at the edge of his property is irrelevant.
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
Generally taking a photo of someone and publishing it requires permission from the person photographed.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Depends, I believe it's generally not allowed to photograph other people on a nude beach, no matter how visible they were.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Camera surveillance must be announced to people entering properties covered by cameras. It is illegal to point security cameras at public spaces without special permission. So why should people expect to be filmed at any moment and have those pictures uploaded to the internet for all to see?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
If the person knows about an across-the-street webcam he can call the police because that's illegal. Filming random people and publishing the images is illegal without their permission. People may be visible but they have a reasonable expectation that their movements are not permanently recorded anywhere without somebody going to great trouble to do it (following you around and writing it down, probably would violate stalking laws). We don't want the government to do automatic surveillance of us and we don't want corporations to do that either.
A lot of the law is about drawing lines, not going to any logical extremes.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
If you are in view of the public there should never be any expectation of privacy.
Really? So you'd have no problem with someone following you around everywhere, looking over your shoulder and broadcasting any credit card numbers they could see even momentarily?
Sitting outside your home and carefully recording when everyone comes and goes, to build up a database of when the home is likely to be undefended^Wunoccupied?
Or maybe hanging around outside a school, working out which of the little girls walks home on her own?
Climbing up a ladder outside someone's window, when their curtains are closed, and looking through the slight gap where the fabric doesn't overlap at the top?
Concealing a video camera in a bag, and carrying it low enough to film up skirts?
Using official CCTV cameras mounted in public areas to look through second floor apartment windows?
The world isn't nearly as black and white as you make out, and any useful notion of privacy and public/private places needs to take into account the shades of grey.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
It is illegal to point security cameras at public spaces without special permission.
Says who?
And Where?
This is certainly not true anywhere in North America.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Rights of distribution apply regardless of profit. You can't record a free concert either. But my point was that "right of distribution" does not have to have the same extent has the "right to view" (or whatever it is called).
Sunlight can be extremely important to your skin (it trigger the synthesis of vitamin D, for example), and I shouldn't be denied my right to privacy (as in not having the picture distributed) if I want to enjoy a sunbath in my own backyard.
Dilbert RSS feed
As the headline says, we're talking about Europe, not North America. I know your privacy laws are radically different.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
You don't need to sunbathe nude to get sufficient sunlight exposure.
Point being, it's not vital to anyone's health that they go outdoors naked, so if they choose to do it anyway, they're in no position to complain about privacy when someone sees them.
I stand by my earlier statement: if you want something to remain private, you should not do it outdoors in plain view from any passing SUV.
If the person knows about an across-the-street webcam he can call the police because that's illegal.
Recording the view from my apartment window is not illegal, regardless of whether people get recorded sometimes. If it is, please reference the law which makes it illegal.
Yes, if I aim the device at someone else's window, and zoom in so I can see people inside, that would be illegal. But accidentally recording a neighbor nude, when he's outside in plain view? Don't be absurd, that's not illegal.
People may be visible but they have a reasonable expectation that their movements are not permanently recorded anywhere
What? People have known for decades that their movements would be permanently recorded by any nearby ATMs, convenience stores, or any other establishment with a video camera overlooking a public area.
It's absurd to say people have an expectation of privacy when they're outdoors. Quite the contrary.
We don't want the government to do automatic surveillance of us and we don't want corporations to do that either.
A one-time drive-by is hardly "automatic surveillance by a corporation". I wouldn't even call it "surveillance".
I would also argue that the demonstrable benefits of Google Street View far outweigh the theoretical problems of one-time so-called "surveillance", especially since you can have Google remove images you think violate your privacy!
Yes, if I aim the device at someone else's window, and zoom in so I can see people inside, that would be illegal. But accidentally recording a neighbor nude, when he's outside in plain view? Don't be absurd, that's not illegal.
Right, but Google isn't doing that.
Regardless, privacy should be on the burden of the persons expecting it when it comes to who can see what. If you don't want people to see in your house, shut the curtains.
What? People have known for decades that their movements would be permanently recorded by any nearby ATMs, convenience stores, or any other establishment with a video camera overlooking a public area. It's absurd to say people have an expectation of privacy when they're outdoors. Quite the contrary.
Exactly. Going back to your previous point, let's say the gas station across the street from your home isn't specifically zoomed in on your home but has very high resolution cameras which make zooming in digitally a trivial matter. If you tried to sue them to get the cameras moved or whatever, the judge would most likely laugh you out of court and tell you to close your curtains.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
If the person knows about an across-the-street webcam he can call the police because that's illegal.
No, it isn't. You made the claim, burden of proof is on you. Go ahead and dig up a law about it somewhere in the civilized world.
Filming random people and publishing the images is illegal without their permission.
Not if its in a public place in America it isn't.
People may be visible but they have a reasonable expectation that their movements are not permanently recorded anywhere without somebody going to great trouble to do it (following you around and writing it down, probably would violate stalking laws).
Then these people are irrevocably stupid. Satellites alone can and have been used to track individuals. But let's entirely forget about those and just look at the dearth of CCTV cameras all over the place. If the law wanted to track you, all they would have to do is subpoena the necessary places to get the footage and have some low pay grade agent go through them all. (Granted, this would make tracking everyone all the time highly impractical, but if they were trying to establish that you were in X area at Y time it would be relatively easy for them to do.
We don't want the government to do automatic surveillance of us and we don't want corporations to do that either.
Too late, already happens. The NSA's entire job basically falls down to gathering information and establishing databases about people (including American citizens). That's not to mention all of the private corporations who have collected said data.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Do we really need to look at intent when you take a photographs of a naked guy in his private property and post it on the internet?
Intent is a fundamental requirement of nearly all criminal law, for good reason. And intent matters here. Did Google have any intent to embarrass the guy, or to cater to prurient interests? Clearly not. For his part, the guy had to be aware that people in tall vehicles could see him, and that matters too. He had no reasonable expectation of privacy.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
As a Devil's Advocate argument: do you mean to imply that you think Barbara Streisand should have won her lawsuit?
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect)
Or is there a difference between a "very high camera" and one on a plane?
It is illegal to point security cameras at public spaces without special permission.
Says who?
And Where?
This is certainly not true anywhere in North America.
In Sweden you need to have a warning sign outside if your store/office/etc has recording security cameras. As the GP also said, you aren't generally allowed to point recording cameras outside on public street and so on - you need a permission for that.
Many people on this story seem to point that you have privacy outside your house (in US), but these kinds of things are greatly different in most of the Europe. People here value their privacy a lot more, for historical reasons too.
Proofreading fail: Many people on this story seem to point out that you have no privacy outside your house (in US)
That's total BS FUD. Not to mention 'future quoting' doesn't make any sense and is CLEARLY slander.
/. knows but many people don't (re. girls posting boobies online and being shocked her classmates find them).
Not to mention that the quote in your sig is totally out of context. Eric was referring to criminals leaving evidence of their crime online. Then Google being subject to US law handing over said info. Which really is just saying that they follow the law and leaving evidence online is stupid. Something that everyone on
It is a giant ass blue van that is well labeled. And stalking/harassment are illegal.
If google made a van follow you around they'd be in shit.
Sitting outside your house for a few days is probably 100% legal unless it falls under stalking laws where you happen to be.
Hanging out by a school is also legal.
Putting a ladder against someone's house is illegal.
Upskirts are illegal and I've no idea how you would upskirt with a van unless you have a thing for giants.
CCTV cams also legal obviously...
So yeah, we cannot easily legislate privacy in the situations you listed. So it isn't illegal. So you should expect little or no privacy while in those places. Perhaps buy better blinds. You make it sound like a big deal 'omg they could know when I'm not at home'. But tbh that is happening anyways. If you are worried about someone targeting your child then they shouldn't be walking home alone. Not complicated really.
If the person knows about an across-the-street webcam he can call the police because that's illegal.
Recording the view from my apartment window is not illegal, regardless of whether people get recorded sometimes.
It is in Sweden, as is taking photographs of people and publishing them. As a teen years ago I actually got in to trouble because of this - there was an accident and I took pictures of the people involved with my camera phone. Police officer came to me and said it's an illegal and asked me to delete the pictures and leave my info in case those pictures of the persons ever would had shown up on the Internet or elsewhere. I didn't know about this then, but I talked with my parents and even at school and everyone explained that specifically taking pictures of other persons in public also violates privacy laws. Seeing all the widely spread pictures on the Internet, I now think this is an extremely good privacy law to have.
What? People have known for decades that their movements would be permanently recorded by any nearby ATMs, convenience stores, or any other establishment with a video camera overlooking a public area.
Yes, that's why any such area with video cameras are by law required to have a warning sign about video surveillance, in places where a person can see it before entering the area. Any store, kiosk, postal office or any other place has such warning outside their doors if they do have a video surveillance. The same goes for public places like streets. It is required by law.
As I said earlier, we Europeans are more concerned about our personal privacy, for historical reasons too.
Did the zone the van was in make taller vehicles illegal? If not they've got fuck all to complain about. Hopping the dude's fence would have been trespassing. But driving by the place in a moving van isn't illegal. Google van shouldn't be either. http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2219/2051749701_5b81783834.jpg --- Not taller than a moving van window.
Assuming they have the cameras at a level people might walk or drive past at, Street View IS an observer driving past given locations. The ONLY difference is that the camera's observation is stored electronically and a person's is stored chemically. Either way, the information can be shared with a little coaxing ( a reason to recall the information) and a proper output method (a very good artist's hand or image display program) from long term storage.
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.
How things are in the US have nothing to do with the story. This is about Europe.
In Google's case, the intent of their stuff is not to violate privacy
I think you are giving Google way too much credit. Google's entire business model is predicated on collecting the maximum amount of information about people that it can. Google actively uses information that is not normally public to further this process. And Google has made serious mistakes that have caused such information to be distributed to other people, as recently as the past few weeks.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Suppose the guy who was photographed nude lived across the street from an apartment building.
Then he doesn't have a reasonable expectation that his backyard is not overlooked by others, and if he still chooses to sunbathe nude then he has made an informed decision on that basis.
Likewise, if double-decker buses routinely drove down the road the Google van used and people on the top level would see over into the gardens, then there might be a reasonable expectation of being overlooked from time to time. (That still doesn't excuse redistribution of a sensitive image, but I don't think you can blame someone who captured such an image unintentionally at that point.)
But as far as we know, neither of those things was the situation in the case we have been discussing, so attacking the sunbather on those bases is just a straw man argument. Context matters.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Well, no, that's not the only difference.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Perhaps I should have clarified:
The intent of Street View is not to violate privacy.
Do we have evidence that the Google Street View vehicle's camera was any higher than the roof of a typical SUV?
Google has been using small cars to do its Street View image capturing recently, rather than big tall vans. If that was the type of vehicle used to capture the images in question, then the guy's claim to privacy is laughable, because anyone sitting in a typical SUV could have seen over the wall as well.
As far as redistribution goes, if Google had people manually inspecting each image, then no, they should not have published it, but they don't, so it's perfectly excusable for them to have published it in the first place, and a takedown request mechanism is a perfectly adequate solution. As far I know, Google has taken down every such image when requested to do so.
It's absurd to claim Google is violating people's privacy when they're the ones going outdoors naked.
In my opinion, if you are outside, then you have no privacy to invade (as far as photography goes, at any rate).
As far as redistribution goes, if Google had people manually inspecting each image, then no, they should not have published it, but they don't, so it's perfectly excusable for them to have published it in the first place
I don't grant your premise. Just because taking proper care is difficult or expensive, that is not an excuse not to take such care. If they can't come up with an automated system that gets it right without showing likely invasive images to real people, then they don't get to run the system in places that have strong privacy laws.
a takedown request mechanism is a perfectly adequate solution. As far I know, Google has taken down every such image when requested to do so.
But this is exactly the problem: once you've published compromising information to the Internet, it is difficult if not impossible to ever take it back again. Pandora's box is open, and closing it again does not fix the damage.
Moreover, a takedown system transfers the burden of enforcement onto the individual, and such a system is unworkable on a worldwide scale because no individual has the resources to check every possible web site that might host a photograph of them to make sure they aren't doing anything they shouldn't.
This is exactly why I favour pretty heavy penalties for those who collect and share more than they should: then penalty should fit the crime, and screwing someone publicly and permanently in front of the entire world is much worse than one person catching a momentary view of something unintended as they walk down the street.
It's absurd to claim Google is violating people's privacy when they're the ones going outdoors naked.
Again, I don't accept your premise. It is not automatically the case that merely going outside forfeits all reasonable expectation of privacy. Apparently, I share this view with the legal systems of several jurisdictions that have now ruled that Street View is a violation of privacy.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
5'9" would be better, since one's eyes are at least 2-3 inches below the top of one's head, and many places have 6'/1.8m height restrictions on fences erected without a permit, but a fence that high is obviously meant to prevent casual observers seeing in. This way, you can;t see anything than an ordinary observer would have been able to see, so there would be a lot less problems with people accidentally exposing themselves. Blurring nude people is obviously still a good idea, because there would be problems with porn censorship laws, and blurring faces would probably be cheaper than facing privacy lawsuits, but they would be a lot safer.
...'future quoting' ... is CLEARLY slander.
Not really, since *anything* is a possible future quote. If the "quote" was posted without explanation, then it probably would be, but, for example, it is perfectly possible that he would say "I like eating babies, yum, yum." The GP was perfectly clear that it wasn't a real quote.
Without considering the specific case (hey, this is /., RingTFL is nearly as bad as TFA), if he lived on a minor road where there were no buses (or no buses at that time), and virtually no cherry pickers, large lorries, and so on, it would be reasonable to assume that no-one would see him over his wall.
and screwing someone publicly and permanently in front of the entire world is much worse than one person catching a momentary view of something unintended as they walk down the street.
First of all, an obscure street view photo is hardly "publicly and permanently in front of the entire world".
If they published the photo on the news, or put it on the front page of google.com, then sure, I'd call it publicly and permanently, but to see it you have to deliberately look at Street View at that address.
Second of all, I disagree: if you don't want people to see you, you shouldn't be outdoors. Whether the people seeing you are physically walking by or not is irrelevant (again, in my opinion).
It is not automatically the case that merely going outside forfeits all reasonable expectation of privacy.
I disagree. If you go outdoors, you should assume someone can see you.
In my opinion, if Street View is a violation of privacy, then walking down the street is a violation of privacy.
If you can see something in public, there is absolutely no reason to ban photographing it.
IMHO, the law should allow photographs to show only what an ordinary person (not a giant, etc.) can see with the naked eye from a publicly accessible place where the subject could be assumed to consider it reasonably likely to be, unless the photographer has permission to take them.
Thus, in the Streisand case, IINM, the photos showed nothing that couldn't be seen from a aeroplane flying legally. Likewise, in one house I lived in, you could see clearly into the main bedroom from a passing bus, and since buses passed every few minutes, irregularly, except in the small hours, so I had no good reason to expect anything I did in that part of the room to go unseen, if I had my blinds open, unless it was night time and I had the lights off (since it would be reasonable to expect that no one would shine a torch in my window to get a better view). (In before anyone tells me they got photos of me, I'm only interested if you're at least reasonably young and beautiful :-) (no, that does not include you, CowboyNeal))
OTOH, in another house, you couldn't see into any of the rooms from outside the estate, unless you climbed a (very difficult to climb) tree beside the road (since a large lorry or a single-decker bus wouldn't allow one to see in, and there were no double-decker buses in the area, so i would expect that no stranger would be able to see me when I'm inside, or in many areas outside, unless I should have known they'd be there, and they wouldn't be taking photographs without permission.
The basic issue is that Google is SEVERELY IRRESPONSIBLE in their implementation of Street View. Driving around taking pictures isn't "illegal" but Google is running a BUSINESS with these picks, and they don't seem to do even basic vetting of the pictures before loading them for the whole internet to see.
If you or I drove around routinely putting up pictures of people like this we'd get in big trouble and "it's an automatic process" wouldn't help US at all. I think they should go after the individual drivers (probably "private contractors") for taking money for the un-censored pictures. That might scare them into censoring their own work.. like normal people have to.
I'm legally married, so that means I can have the Sex with my wife. I wouldn't like somebody driving by posting pics of us practicing (badly) Kama Sutra positions, even though I'm legally allowed to do them. The "right to privacy" is not so much to be "private" but not to have your business broadcast all over by just anybody... especially commercially.
Like the guy naked in his yard or girl at a nude beach. In that country those are LEGAL things to be doing. That doesn't mean putting pictures of them on the Internet is ethically right especially when you're not even part of the social group or asking permission to photograph.
THIS is a very specific case and not very many regular folks can publish tens of thousands of pictures in a week. This comes down to the difference between CORPORATIONS and PEOPLE that's been lost. Corporations don't have rights, they are chartered to do a task. The right to take pictures of EVERYBODY is not the same as MY right to take pictures of ANYBODY that happens to be on my street.
The problem is that Google is simply dumping their video (trying to drive fast enough they don't get stopped for stalking!) and not doing a good job of vetting for things that shouldn't be published. If they were a Newspaper, for example, they would be taking a beating for that behavior. Using the "it's automated collection" isn't an excuse.. doesn't work when somebody hides a camera in a room they own either.
There is a difference between one person incidentally observing something while going about their daily business and having a commercial organization with vast resources deliberately and systematically collect information about the entire world and then provide it in a permanent, publicly available, searchable form that anyone can use for any purpose
Actually, it doesn't matter about the organization, if the law is taken within its true context. The observer can, or cannot, be a part of an organization with any and all characteristics represented above, regardless as to whether the observer is human or machine. The only difference in this regard is the efficiency in which the organization operates. Any person can draw a nearly-perfect image of a location, tagging it publicly with keywords, and allowing it to be searched. The difference is the rate at which this process may occur....this a human, it may be a hour for each picture. With a sufficiently powerful machine with adaptable logic, it may be minutes in between each tagging.
The argument that one observer differes from another is a point that requires no further negotiation, as anything that may be seen by a human can be correctly assumed to be recalled exactly, and correctly, at any later date, regardless as to the nature of the observer, whether it be man or machine.
can't believe they didn't find the solution yet... it's so easy.
tell that the the paperatizi obviosly theer is one law for bilionares who own papers and one for the rest of us and upstart foriegn company.
I'm sure these guys were more than happy to sign the release form. And they must have used a big stack of paper for this one
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
If the bus goes past as part of its regular route then the person should have an expectation of being overlooked. But if you drove it there specifically to use it as a mobile observation tower then that's an entirely different thing.
So to answer your question: yes, we do need to consider intent.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
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
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.
I respectfully suggest that you are trying to validate a position you have already decided is the right one, and stretching your arguments to the point of implausibility to get there.
To give one simple consideration you haven't taken into account: if we are both walking down the street and see each other, there is parity. You can see what I am doing, but I can see that you are watching me. There is no such parity when one of the parties is unknown and watching by remote camera proxy. Society has historically regarded such parity as a good thing, while describing one-sided attempts to observe another party covertly with terms like "spying" and "stalking".
Secondly, the scale and efficiency of the process do matter. You write as if the entire human population possesses eidetic memory, the artistic skill to render a photorealistic drawing of what they saw, the time and inclination to do so for whatever reason just because they once caught sight of something intended to be private, and the desire to share the results with the world via the Internet. I suspect that you could not cite a single example where this has, in fact, happened. Meanwhile, with Google's automated process, it is a matter of public and legal record that such results have occurred on many occasions.
These are the kinds of reasons why we should not equate the cases of a person randomly walking down the street and a Google camera van. We can't just treat the public/private divide as something black and white: the context, and the consequences, are very different, and any amicable balance of reasonable privacy with reasonable freedom of expression has to take into account the whole scale, not just the extremes.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
First of all, an obscure street view photo is hardly "publicly and permanently in front of the entire world".
But the problem is that in the Internet age, a compromising photo can go from obscure to hundreds of thousands of hits in a matter of minutes. Is there any real difference between "obscure" and "not discovered and publicised yet" on the Internet?
Have you never known a friend to be abused by an ex on a site like Facebook? It's brutal: post one compromising photo, and it's a good bet that many people who know that person will see it before it is noticed and removed. Depending on what's in that photo, it could cause break-ups of friendships, loss of a job, family problems...
Exactly the same could happen with a system like Street View, given that anything compromising is likely to be either at someone's home address (which is easily searched for) or somewhere with certain associations, like outside a drug rehabilitation centre.
Whether the people seeing you are physically walking by or not is irrelevant (again, in my opinion).
Well, of course you're entitled to your opinion. But please see my other comments in this discussion for why I do not believe any privacy law should treat those scenarios in the same way, for example because in one case there is parity (you see me, but I also see you) and in the other there is not.
If you can see something in public, there is absolutely no reason to ban photographing it.
If your view is truly that black and white, then I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. Photographs record things permanently, and photographs can be copied and widely distributed. There are profound implications to those two facts that don't apply to something that someone sees casually walking down the street.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
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.
There is no such parity when one of the parties is unknown and watching by remote camera proxy.
Oh? The cameras are behind invisibility cloaks now? I didn't realize that you couldn't ever see a camera. The camera can see you, and doesn't know the processes going on inside of your head. Why is you looking at the camera, and not know what it is doing, any different?
Society has historically regarded such parity as a good thing, while describing one-sided attempts to observe another party covertly with terms like "spying" and "stalking".
Society has also regarded "spying" and "stalking" as the gathering of information against one entity, be it a person, organization, or government. Google's Street View doesn't actually target anyone, or anything, that wouldn't be publicly available, and it doesn't target any individual, organization, or government.
You write as if the entire human population possesses eidetic memory, the artistic skill to render a photo realistic drawing of what they saw, the time and inclination to do so for whatever reason just because they once caught sight of something intended to be private, and the desire to share the results with the world via the Internet.
Considering that a random person walking down the street may or may not have this ability, as a camera may or may not be taking pictures and processing them, your point seems silly. You don't know what abilities a person walking by has, so you can, in the worst-case scenario, assume every single person will have all of the qualities you list, and will record every single thing they see and make it public. Since a person, or a population, can do it in theory, why should Google's cameras be treated differently in terms of privacy?
There's nothing wrong with them taking pictures on the street, as you don't have, and have never had, any reasonable expectation of privacy in these public areas. It's only when Google does something like looking over your 7-foot-tall wall, or in your window that's not normally accessible to view from the street, that Google is violating the privacy of anyone.
I see, did they ask the Google to take down the photos and Google refused to comply or something?
"Officer, any time I'm speeding, you just let me know and I'll stop doing it, OK? I'm happy to comply."
Officer that pervert saw me naked!
How did he sneak into your private quarters, broke a lock?
No, sir, I was getting undresses in front of a window and the perv was looking at me.
Buy some curtains! Move along, now!
What celebrities, you gibbon?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The cameras are behind invisibility cloaks now?
Well, if we're talking generally, then effectively the answer is yes. We might as well be realistic about what modern technology allows, including the ability to conceal small cameras for covert surveillance.
Why is you looking at the camera, and not know what it is doing, any different?
The camera is just a tool. It is whether the people involved can see each other that determines parity. If you're looking at a camera, you don't even know who's on the other end of it.
Considering that a random person walking down the street may or may not have this ability
This line of discussion is tiresome. You have constructed a hypothetical superhuman person with abilities, resources and intent that I find entirely unrealistic, and your entire argument that Google's actions are reasonable is based on the premise that such people exist.
There's nothing wrong with them taking pictures on the street, as you don't have, and have never had, any reasonable expectation of privacy in these public areas.
So a few people keep saying, but as I've noted several times elsewhere in this discussion, I think most people would reasonably expect all kinds of social conventions to be followed even under those circumstances: you probably wouldn't like it if someone physically followed you around writing down everywhere you went, or kept a video camera on your wallet the whole time you were out in case you momentarily revealed your card details while making a payment.
And that's before we get into the increased concerns when modern technology allows mass databases, data mining and open republication via the Internet. I think society's expectations of privacy are going to evolve as non-technical people start to realise the implications of not changing the rules to keep up with the capabilities of new technologies.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
It's de facto illegal to take photos pretty much anywhere in the EU. Unless you're the police, of course.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The camera is just a tool. It is whether the people involved can see each other that determines parity. If you're looking at a camera, you don't even know who's on the other end of it.
You may very well not know who's on the other end of a camera on a timer for time lapse photography, either, especially if they're taking the pictures from a 2-story rooftop so the camera can be unattended. I guess we should outlaw that too?
How about the cameras in Walmart? I don't know who is on the other end, therefore it should be outlawed to film security footage.
This line of discussion is tiresome. You have constructed a hypothetical superhuman person with abilities, resources and intent that I find entirely unrealistic, and your entire argument that Google's actions are reasonable is based on the premise that such people exist.
No, I really haven't. All a person needs to do is remember the image of you inside your window, not the entirety of the situation including the placement and design of your fire escape, and the situation hasn't changed in any regard other than scope of "extras". Now, when you take into consideration that the scope of the problem is only the image of you in the window, and you'll see that by outlawing Google from running a Street View program, you also outlaw any artist from taking a picture of any building that has a window unless they check every single one before taking the shot.
you probably wouldn't like it if someone physically followed you around writing down everywhere you went, or kept a video camera on your wallet the whole time you were out in case you momentarily revealed your card details while making a payment.
Your entire opinion seems to be based on the fallacy that Google driving around taking pictures en masse is equivalent to someone spying specifically on you. This is definitively not the case. If a company that is running a (extremely) large Street View-like operation decides to start tracking individuals using their mass data gathering, then they should be prosecuted under spying or stalking laws. However, as it stands, there's nothing that personally identifies you (except for, potentially, an address), and they aren't following you.
And that's before we get into the increased concerns when modern technology allows mass databases, data mining and open republication via the Internet. I think society's expectations of privacy are going to evolve as non-technical people start to realise the implications of not changing the rules to keep up with the capabilities of new technologies.
Society's expectations of privacy don't need to evolve. They're perfectly fine. What needs to evolve is the ability to apply the same conventions we have had for a while now to said new technologies in a manner that equates truly equal concepts rather than distort them. Most people who aren't technically oriented wouldn't be able to, as they don't have a firm grasp as to the situation. Most people who are technically oriented are interested in drawing lines where there shouldn't be one, as they need to make the view of the world more complex that it really is.
Unfortunately I was out when the van came around, and even if I was in I doubt I would have time to close all my curtains so it can't see in.
If Google had popped a note through my door warning me that this was happening and informing me when the photos went live so I could remove them immediately I might have some sympathy.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
No, it isn't. You made the claim, burden of proof is on you. Go ahead and dig up a law about it somewhere in the civilized world.
Rules in the state of Lower Saxony, Germany.
Video surveillance of "publicly accessible locations" is only permitted in order to protect people or objects located therein and only if protecting the rights of the recorded people is not more important. Furthermore any such locations must have visible measures declaring that the area is under surveillance. Any material collected that way that is not necessary for the purpose of protection (anymore) is to be destroyed afterwards. If a person is identified through video surveillance they are to be notified (unless it's for anti-crime purposes).
The federal level law is similar except it includes "for specified authorized purposes" and the definition for that wasn't at hand. Just uploading stuff to the web for laughs most likely isn't an authorized purpose. Since the federal laws are likely made to conform to a EU law you can likely find similar laws in all EU member states but I'm not digging through all those laws just to find you additional proof.
That was the first result I could find on Google. I also found a note that recording demonstrations is a violation of the basic right to gather.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
If the person knows about an across-the-street webcam he can call the police because that's illegal.
Recording the view from my apartment window is not illegal, regardless of whether people get recorded sometimes.
It is in Sweden, as is taking photographs of people and publishing them.
If you cherry-pick jurisdictions, you can probably prove anything you like.
(leaves space for a "In Soviet Russia" meme)
Satellites from the USA go all over the world, including Europe.
-- "You have zero privacy anyway -- get over it" - Scott McNealy, Sun Microsystems.
It's not cherry-picking as the story is about Europe. As far as I know, the same applies to Norway, Finland and Denmark too, probably elsewhere in Europe too.
Are there any outright EU laws about privacy? Not individual countries.