Street View On iOS Pierces German Privacy Veil

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."

Comments

We're idiots about privacy

[Arancaytar]

It appears that here in Germany, we don't care much whether our ISP is obliged to keep all our internet traffic on file for months, our web access can be arbitrarily and secretly limited, our radio organizations can demand listener fees from everyone with an internet connection and shit like ACTA can get dictated on us from the copyright mafia... ... but DON'T YOU DARE put a photo of my HOUSE on the INTERNET.

Thanks for the tea party, America; at least that way there are a few things left we can feel smugly superior about.

Re:We're idiots about privacy

[Anonymous Coward]

It appears that here in Germany, we don't care much whether our ISP is obliged to keep all our internet traffic on file for months

Remember how a German court declared this illegal?

Re:We're idiots about privacy

[Anonymous Coward]

The craziest thing is that "panorama photography" has been explicitly allowed by law in Germany for ages and nobody seemed to have a problem with it. Now they're looking to severely restrict the right to take pictures in public space, because apparently now your private property extends to blurry images of your house facade. But I'm sure that when they pass Lex Google Street View, there will be a sweeping exemption for camera surveillance by government and business. Germans actually love being watched as long as it's their own Big Brother who watches them, not some American company.

Now I'm going out with my camera to help uncensor Street View.

Re:Amateurs

[SydShamino]

And what happens when the house's new owners want it unblurred? Google has to send out a new truck because their only copy of the existing picture is blurry?

I think Google operates under the memo "Never delete anything without a court order." They're required to blur the images they display, not their source material they store internally, so they didn't.

Re:You've got it all wrong!

[wygit]

It didn't say they were supposed to be deleting the images, but de-rezzing them, which deletes data, as opposed to adding a filter on top of the images, which is apparently what they did.

I can see that... It's not like you can put the data back later if the German government changes its mind.