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

[mischi_amnesiac]

Yeah, remember those idiots who protested against street view and the newspaper made a picture of them in front of their home and published the article online?
http://www.rp-online.de/duesseldorf/duesseldorf-stadt/nachrichten/Buergerprotest-gegen-Google_aid_892897.html

Sorry, article is in german, but the picture is there.

Google voluntarily pixels buildings

[Geheimagent]

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.

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.