The Street View platform in Google maps is indeed an extremely useful tool. However, it’s never been far from controversy in terms of the various issues it has experienced with privacy and public information. As a result it seems now that Germany (a country with some of the highest numbers of government data removal requests) have been granted a tool to blur houses in street view, in the same way that they blur faces and license plates.
This is one of many concessions which Google have had to make in their street view, yet is likely to have a larger impact than some of these other issues:
- In England Google Street Cars where stopped from entering certain areas by man-made blockades.
- Various international governments including Spain and Germany filed legal cases against Google for their collection of private Wifi data via their street cars.
- Countless complaints have been lodged regarding views of private properties in Street View.
With this service now available, people can fill in a simple form and use a map to pinpoint the building they want removed from Google. While Google have made the concession it is worth noting that it does come with certain limitations.
One Way Street View
Firstly, this service is currently only available in Germany. It would appear that the more you complain the more likely you are to get your own way. Germany has a history with Google over high level censorship and data removal/control, so it could be this background which has tipped the scale so to speak.
Secondly, the service is only available for a limited time. This seems slightly unusual as any change of this measure to the service would surely be deemed a permanent requirement.
It could be the case that this temporary amendment is aimed at appeasing the minority without inciting the majority. There are clearly large numbers of people in multiple countries who take issue with the lack of privacy in Street View but few would take the step of actually removing themselves from it. Of course this might not be the case and the temporary tool could well be a trial run for a larger roll out.
What this could mean is that Google Street View might have to take a step backwards having opened the floodgates for widespread censoring.
German Snapper
As a side note, there is at least someone against this censorship. German photographer and IT consultant Jens Best is on a personal mission to photograph all of the building that are removed from street view and add them to Picasa as a kind of middle finger to censorship. Citing his reason as: the right to take photographs in public space, Jens says he’d even risk jail in pursuit of his mission.
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