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Street View On iOS Pierces German Privacy Veil

Posted by timothy on from the you-can-just-move dept.

jfruhlinger writes "After some prickly negotiations with the German government's privacy regulators, Google got permission to launch its Street View service for German addresses, so long as people had the right to opt out and choose to have only a blurred version of their homes on the service. But it turns out that iPhone and iPad users can see those buildings after all."

2 of 46 comments (clear)

  1. Google voluntarily pixels buildings by Geheimagent · · Score: 4, Informative

    The streetview service is not illegal in Germany. Google voluntarily pixels houses if people living there demand it. They don't have to. Other services like sightwalk.de do it without for years.

  2. don't feed the German government trolls by t2t10 · · Score: 2, Informative

    The German government may pretend that hiding images of buildings and people visible from public streets is "privacy" but it's merely privacy theater.

    Germany's government has one of the wost records on privacy among European nations, pushing for data retention, registration of religions beliefs with the government, extensive electronic government surveillance, even aerial photography of people's backyards.

    So, don't feed the German government trolls: don't call this restriction of photography "privacy".