After Modifications, Google Street View Approved For Switzerland

An anonymous reader writes "Since Google began collecting Street View data in Europe a few years ago, many countries have taken it the company to court in order to settle privacy concerns. The NY Times reports that the last challenge to Street View's basic legality has been resolved. Switzerland's top court accepted that Google could only guarantee they would blur out 99% of faces, license plates, and other identifying markers, but also imposed some additional restrictions. 'Those conditions would require Google to lower the height of its Street View cameras so they would not peer over garden walls and hedges, to completely blur out sensitive facilities like women's shelters, prisons, retirement homes and schools, and to advise communities in advance of scheduled tapings.'"

Comments

As not to offend the well-heeled.

[sethstorm]

'Those conditions would require Google to lower the height of its Street View cameras so they would not peer over garden walls and hedges

While it'd not be a complete 1:1 mapping of those features to large & gated-off mansions, one can see where that one came from.

Re:As not to offend the well-heeled.

[Hentes]

This is Europe not America.

Re:As not to offend the well-heeled.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to say that there isn't some nice villa's in switzerland,vbut in most european cities space and privacy is a precious commodity. I live in zurich and looking outside my apartment I can see the guy taking a shower next door. When your bedroom window is on the verge of the street, asking google to lower their camera is the least that they can do, I would go further and ban it completely in built up residential areas. Curtains help.

Re:As not to offend the well-heeled.

[mpoulton]

Where do you live that only rich people have fences or hedges? More importantly where all have you traveled that you've never seen towns where everyone has those things? I've lived all over the USA, and I'd in say about 1/3 to 1/2 of the places I've lived it's been common for most people to have fences or hedges for privacy. In Phoenix almost every house has a 6' block wall fence, including in very poor neighborhoods.

Re:As not to offend the well-heeled.

[Chrisq]

Where do you live that only rich people have fences or hedges?

A lot of places, including some in America don't have fences.

Re:As not to offend the well-heeled.

[superdave80]

...looking outside my apartment I can see the guy taking a shower next door.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and suggest some high tech things like drapes and blinds to solve this problem.

prisons?

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, a lot of that I can see - e.g, women's shelters or schools. But if the Google van snaps some photos of the outside of a prison, what's the problem there? Presumably they're not violating the privacy of the inmates, who are inside the prison, and anyone could come along and photograph the prison from the same place and post it on Flickr.

Just curious what's up with that.

Re:prisons?

[YrWrstNtmr]

and anyone could come along and photograph the prison from the same place and post it on Flickr.

Anyone who routinely uses a camera at the top of a 3 meter pole.

Re:prisons?

[houghi]

Presumably they're not violating the privacy of the inmates

Yes they are. In Europe privacy does mean something much more complexx then it does in the USofA.
It does not just mean: "Things I do in my house with the curtains closed".
It goes much, much further then that.

Perhaps you can best compare it to the original copyright where I have the right to my own life and everything that goes on it it. And copyright as me, the owner of my life. You should have my permission of you want a copy of it.

Switzerland is not a EU member

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this tagged "eu" and has a EU flag? Switzerland is not a EU member.

Re:Switzerland is not a EU member

[Steve Newall]

No, EU refers to the European Union See EU in Wikipedia of which Switzerland is not a member.

Re:Switzerland is not a EU member

[Canazza]

the Abbreviation for Europe is EUR (which is ALSO the abbreviation for the Euro currency, which is confusing too), but people do use EU instead (whether right or wrong), but here, alongside the flag, it's blatantly just idiocy at work.

Re:Switzerland is not a EU member

[sosume]

That's like using US for Canada

Re:Switzerland is not a EU member

[bstocker]

No. EU refers to the "Europe Union", a political term, no to be confused with "Europa", a geographical term. Switzerland ist located in Europa, but is not member of the Europe union. The flag shown for this article is the EU-Flag with the circle of stars on blue ground. Switzerland has - like all countries - it's own flag: a white cross on red ground.

Women's Shelters

[rhook]

Wouldn't blurring these out be the same as putting up a sign saying "Women's Shelter"? I thought those places were nondescript houses.

Re:Women's Shelters

[Chrisq]

Wouldn't blurring these out be the same as putting up a sign saying "Women's Shelter"? I thought those places were nondescript houses.

I expect its the 1% of faces that don't get blurred that they worry about here - someone escaping a violent partner appearing on google images outside their address

Re:Women's Shelters

[rhook]

It's much easier than that. Look for blurred out houses in a residential neighborhood.

Switzerland is not in EU

[orzetto]

Even if the article is tagged EU, it discusses only Switzerland, and Switzerland is not in the EU.

If you are out in public why expect privacy?

[capedgirardeau]

The law regarding this type of thing here in Switzerland drives me crazy.

You are out in public, you should have no expectation of privacy. Period, end of story.

What is next? Legislating that no one can look at anyone else in public? We all have to walk with our heads down so we don't accidentally see anyone else out on the street?

I am all for private data staying private, but when I am out in public, it is, get this: public information.

Re:If you are out in public why expect privacy?

[YrWrstNtmr]

I am all for private data staying private, but when I am out in public, it is, get this: public information.

I have a 6' fence around my backyard. My neighbors cannot see in, and I cannot see out Stand in the street, take a picture of the front and side of my house, and you see fence.
Now elevate your viewpoint to 10 feet. You can see much more.

If I stood in front of your house taking pics with a camera on a 10 foot monopod, you'd rightfully wonder WTF. But Google, with their 10 foot tall cameras, somehow gets a pass.

Re:If you are out in public why expect privacy?

[jonnythan]

That's reasonable. What's not really reasonable is having to blur out faces, license plates, and a billion other things.

Re:If you are out in public why expect privacy?

[nurb432]

As long as the government doesn't start using the 'public data' to track your every movement and associations, i agree.

while not being able to look at another person is sort of silly, i wouldn't be surprised if they start banning cameras in public.

Re:If you are out in public why expect privacy?

[tftp]

What's not really reasonable is having to blur out faces, license plates

It is perfectly reasonable because leaving them in does not contribute anything to the value of StreetView. It's not FaceView or LicenseView, after all. Even if you leave those things unblurred the presence of a certain person or a vehicle at a certain location is generally useless - those things are mobile...

Re:If you are out in public why expect privacy?

[Gordonjcp]

Define "out in public". Because, to me, I have rights unless I give them up. And I don't give them up merely by walking somewhere which you have decided implies that I give them up. That's the tyrant's way.

Oh, I think I know you. Are you the guy that walks up and down the main street where I live screaming "STOP STARING AT ME!" to people, dogs, cats, lamp posts and pillar boxes?

Re:If you are out in public why expect privacy?

[AmiMoJo]

People have been shown leaving sex shops or prostituting themselves. In the past if you did those things away from where you live there was basically zero chance of anyone you know finding out just by seeing you do it. Now your picture will end up on hundreds of web sites and be preserved forever.

Worse still facial recognition is rapidly improving and it isn't hard to see that given a few years it would become possible to search for people on Street View, even if Google are not the ones offering the service.

Re:If you are out in public why expect privacy?

[R3d M3rcury]

I suppose that's reasonable. But suppose I'm riding past your house on a really tall unicycle. Should we be banning those as well? Or should you have a taller fence?

Re:If you are out in public why expect privacy?

[Gordonjcp]

I don't really see how you get "privacy" in sections of the RF spectrum. In fact, the amateur radio bands are one of the bits that absolutely anybody is allowed to listen to without restriction.

I wouldn't give someone my bank details on S20, although you certainly hear a lot of the old farts discussing their medical problems up the top end of 80m.

Where does privacy come into it?

Re:If you are out in public why expect privacy?

[stephanruby]

If I stood in front of your house taking pics with a camera on a 10 foot monopod, you'd rightfully wonder WTF. But Google, with their 10 foot tall cameras, somehow gets a pass.

You've made a good point, but just to clarify.

The height Google Street View was using for their camera was actually around 8.2 feet, or about 2.5 meters, and those pictures are usually taken from the middle of the road, not just a few inches next to the top of your fence.

And no, I'm not trying to give Google an excuse here. 8.2 feet in some of the smaller streets in Switzerland was too high in my opinion. And I'm glad that the government is making them lower that height. But for many larger streets, wider boulevards, and autoroutes, where larger trucks and buses routinely drive on, 2.5 meters is about the eye level of some of the truck drivers and bus passengers, and in my opinion that makes the expectation of privacy at that height in those areas much different.

For one thing, 2.5 meters was just enough to see above the car roof of most cars, but if you lower that limit across the board, many more street numbers and road signs will start getting obstructed depending on traffic, and that could seriously decrease the continuity and the quality of the resulting product.

Also blanking out prisons and women's shelters, doesn't make much sense to me. The Swiss government obviously didn't learn from the mistakes of other governments or Barbra Streisand. Experience has shown, that hiding information, which would normally be publicly accessible, only helps publicize that information even more and attract it undue attention.

Re:If you are out in public why expect privacy?

[subreality]

A person riding past on a tall unicycle results in one person seeing over the fence. Google taking pictures is explicitly for the purpose of posting them to a popular web site with strong indexing so anyone in the world can look over your fence remotely.

I wouldn't mind if some guy on a unicycle looked over my fence and saw me exposing myself to the sky. He can deal with his own mental scars. But I wouldn't be happy about it at all if Google took pictures for the whole world to see.

Re:If you are out in public why expect privacy?

[LocalH]

But you have no property rights over data involving other people's identity, which means you don't get to store, process or distribute such data.

Taken literally, that means you support banning address books and phonebooks?

Re:If you are out in public why expect privacy?

[drinkypoo]

Now elevate your viewpoint to 10 feet. You can see much more.

Just out of curiosity, are stilts illegal where you live?

Re:If you are out in public why expect privacy?

[rtb61]

Well, duhh, two storey houses are also illegal in your neighbourhood. Your neighbours need permission before they or contractors they employ can climb on their roof. Trucks driving through your neighbourhood must paint out their windows. Your neighbour also pays to have all hills and slopes removed, dead flat, to match their heads.

You own the privacy inside your home not out in your yard, that is part of the neighbourhood and as it impacts them, both in the products you release from your yard and the impact of the appearance of your yard and the safety of objects and structures in your yard.

Basically grow up, you are part of a society not some lone creature living in the wilds. If you want to be a lobe creature living in the wild, then do so. What happens when a neighbour places security cameras around the perimeter of their home mounted directly at the eaves, much higher than six feet. What happens when a neighbour wants to add a second storey addition. Let's guess, you want to do what you want to do in your yard and you want your neighbours to do what 'YOU' want them to do in their yard.

Notification of Google street view dates is going to be a joke, companies will be real dicks and putting up signs all over the places, especially near the competitors. Every smart alec is going to try to pull all kinds of stupid stunts to get on google street view, injuries and deaths, very likely. Basically Google should just give Switzerland a quick cheap trial with advanced notice, and then put up the resultant mess, and then quit before wasting more money.

Hint, for the stupid, why are googles cameras mounted so high because they are not the only cars on the road and the cameras have to be higher than say 'SUV's, otherwise they have to keep driving down the same street, over and over and over and over and over again. Basically mount the cameras low and you are wasting your time.

Re:If you are out in public why expect privacy?

[Gordonjcp]

Aha, so you're using a synonym out of context to make quite a clever point.

It's a shame it doesn't come down to the laws of physics, because it would make preventing interference from unlicensed operators easier.

Re:If you are out in public why expect privacy?

[Idarubicin]

Also blanking out prisons and women's shelters, doesn't make much sense to me. The Swiss government obviously didn't learn from the mistakes of other governments or Barbra Streisand. Experience has shown, that hiding information, which would normally be publicly accessible, only helps publicize that information even more and attract it undue attention.

The point, I think, is not to conceal the existence or location of these facilities (which can, after all, be readily established using a telephone book), but rather to more-thoroughly protect the privacy of the individuals visiting or making use of them. As Google has acknowledged that their face- and number-plate-blurring algorithm is only about 99% effective, the Swiss solution is to insist on specific exclusion of these particularly-privacy-sensitive locations. (It was deemed that "Oops, we're sorry that the battered woman in the window of the shelter was part of the 1% our algorithm missed" wasn't a sufficiently robust response.)

Re:If you are out in public why expect privacy?

[xenobyte]

There are two things here:

1) Google should take their photos from a human height, i.e. 6-7 feet, not 10 feet or more. This is what people see so that's what Google should show.
2) What are you hiding? - You can put up a hedge or similar which obscures things, but a 6-foot solid fence? - You MUST be hiding something!

Seriously, I think it's a runaway trend to put up tall fences, walls and so on. You need to open up and face the world, not shield yourself from it. It's arrogant and somewhat hostile to do separate yourself from the world like that.

Re:If you are out in public why expect privacy?

[TranquilVoid]

Actually, in many places neighbours can register their disapproval over building adjoining two-story houses, and such houses, if built, have requirements on the height of windows overlooking neighbouring yards.

But that's sort of irrelevant as many of the other things you point out are true. What is not true is that there is a simple "it must be impossible to see into a yard" principle in the law. This is about the practicality and the effects, and the possible effects from Google showing your yard to the world is a lot greater than from a tradesperson or passing stilt-walker.

To me it's similar to phone books. Everyone used to happily list their name, address and phone number in the local/state book. Now that this information is published globally online, people think it's "stupid" and "dangerous" to, say, state your address on Facebook.

This change in concern is both valid and invalid. The valid part is that the larger the group of people the more outliers there are, so you are exposed to the possibility of a more extreme event (some weirdo in another country randomly falling in love and stalking you, or those 5000-people flash parties at your house etc.). The invalid part is that it's probably as likely as being involved in a shark attack.

Seems reasonable

[gman003]

Lowering the height seems reasonable. If someone has a high fence or hedge or such, they obviously consider the area behind it "private" and wish it to stay that way. But doing so will not significantly worsen the Street View images.

Likewise, blurring out sensitive areas is also logical. I think they're going a bit too far, personally - retirement homes? - but it's still not unreasonable. I can disagree with the extent of that decision while still recognizing that it was a logically-defensible and rational decision.

Advising communities in advance is also reasonable, if defined reasonably. Obviously, demanding Google go door-to-door six months ahead of time and personally notify every single person is unreasonable, but if it's just "mail them a letter stating the days and approximate times you expect to go by" or "put a notice in the local newspaper", it's fine. I doubt many people will care, but it will placate the few who have concerns.

Re:Seems reasonable

[AmiMoJo]

Warning people will allow them to put out advertising. Could become a national sport, getting your personal message on Google.

Re:Seems reasonable

[NettiWelho]

Could become a national sport, getting your personal message on Google.

Get your message on google just in time to get it automatically blurred with a lot of other things too.

Re:Why do we need real images?

[Anonymous Coward]

Comparing Google street images of houses vs. MLS photographs is priceless. MLS photogs frame out the hoarding neighbor, the tree leaning over the house that will cost $10,000 to remove, the leaning deck. Google street is one of several tools that have saved me a lot of time and gas that would have been spent looking at places I don't want to live.

So in other words

[nurb432]

Its now useless there.

I'm as much for privacy as anyone else but if i can stand on the street corner and see something, there is no reason Google cant record it too.

Don't want to be on Google, don't do whatever you are doing within sight of the street....

Re:So in other words

[tftp]

if i can stand on the street corner and see something, there is no reason Google cant record it too.

Privacy, just like security, is largely based on obscurity. Yes, you can stand on the street corner and watch. However you have to physically be there to do that. Given that not everyone is overly interested in doings at street corners, most people are safe and secure simply because there are too many street corners for observers to stand at.

Google offers to be your personal army of watchers. You no longer need to personally visit places - your proxies do that for you. All you now need is to sit in your comfortable chair at home and inspect as many photos as you can. Rain, snow, national borders are no longer an obstacle to you, and you cannot even be stopped by the local police. StreetView is a huge force multiplier. There are already examples of private acts that were observed by StreetView and completely missed by locals.

Don't want to be on Google, don't do whatever you are doing within sight of the street

If ten million people don't want to be inconvenienced by Google, it's entirely up to them to tell Google to get lost.

Re:So in other words

[Ash-Fox]

What if another ten million people don't want to be inconvenienced by those ten million people?

Re:So in other words

[tftp]

What if another ten million people don't want to be inconvenienced by those ten million people?

It depends on who can insist on his solution, who is more powerful. I think Chairman Mao already explained what the origin of power is.

In this case it is quite obvious who is in control in the country: it's the country's government, representing all citizens. Opinions of citizens of other countries, or of employees of foreign corporations, have no weight here.

Nothing aids my comprehension of an area like blur

[rastoboy29]

What, exactly, is the problem with showing women's shelters, prisons, or schools?  Will bad people not be able to find them without street view?  What is the downside, I don't understand.

Re:Not blurring better

[The Archon V2.0]

Just what I was thinking. You'd think the compromise would be more like someone has to go over the images of a "sensitive facility" by hand to make sure there's no faces left visible, not a giant flag screaming THIS IS PROBABLY A SHELTER! If there's any doubt, well, most of the other blurred facilities (Google Translate sez: schools, hospitals, retirement nursing homes, shelters, courts and prisons) publicly advertise the fact, so it shouldn't be hard to type the address of the suspicious place into... well, Google, and see if it comes up or not. Hell, if local Streetview is any reference, then the non-shelters will all have a nice little arrow-thing on the screen or on the inset overhead map saying what it is!

Some explanations for non-Swiss people

[AnonymousDot]

Switzerland, like probably some other countries in Europe, has privacy of its citizen written in the law. That means that, by default, you are not allowed to take pictures of home gardens without prior approval (with or without fence). You also cannot also take picture of, or interview, individuals without their prior consent.

Google should adopt this for all street view.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does it take one country to impose common sense on street view?

The rules Switzerland are imposing should be used across all of street view, not just for Switzerland.

Schools? Really?

[wealthychef]

When did schools become "sensitive facilities?" I thought that was strange -- part of the apparent "there's a stalker behind every bush" mindset of modern parents.

Re:Nothing aids my comprehension of an area like b

[wealthychef]

Yes, you beat me to it! I thought that was strange too. I could see women's shelters, but prisons and schools are very strange additions to the privacy list. You mean students and prisoners have an expectation of privacy while going to their cells? Good luck with that.

Creates barrier of entry for competitors

[wired_parrot]

It seems to that the various privacy laws in place across Europe targeting Google Maps have little effect on Google, which has enough resources that they can easily apply technical fixes to tackle each states differing privacy requirement. The net effect though, is to provide a high barrier of entry for competitors. A young startup wishing to start a competing street level mapping service will not have army of lawyers to sort through each states differing laws. Nor may they have the technical expertise to accurately implement blurring algorithms to the satisfaction of the courts. In short, while these laws are intended to target Google, they end up benefiting it, by making it more difficult for competitors to enter the field.

Re:Why do we need real images?

[Idarubicin]

I use Street View for when I want to know what the View is from the Street. Another poster has mentioned shopping for real estate, but that's far from the only use. I use it for the utterly prosaic purpose of identifying landmarks and storefronts when I'm planning a vacation or shopping trip to an unfamiliar destination. The top of a building just doesn't look like the side of a building.