Google Street View has come under a lot of criticism since its launch in the UK earlier this year. One Village in the UK prevented Google from taking images of its streets in a protest against privacy. This resulted in complaints to the Information Commissioner about possible breaches of the Data Protection Act by Google.


The Residents of Broughton, near Milton Keynes, stopped the driver of the Google Street Maps car from entering the village. The Police were called to attend after residents reported Google was invading their privacy and “facilitating a Crime”, insisting that Google should have obtained permission before entering the village.


Privacy International put forward a formal complaint, along with 74 other individual, to the Information Commissioner requesting the service be suspended, pending an investigation due to the fact that some faces were clearly visible on the published images.


Google Street Views does use a face blurring technology but some individual faces are not obscured. Google has put in place a system that allows users to request the blurring of their face or of an image. Dozens of images have been removed from the UK version of Street View since the service went live.
The information Commissioner has ruled that Google is not in breach of the Data protection act and that Google is not invading the privacy of UK residents. In fact it’s clearly evident that Google is clearly removing images as quickly as possible.


“We recognise that a small minority of people may not wish their house to be included in the service which is why we have created easy to use removals tools,” said a spokesman from Google.
David Evans the Information Commissioner’s senior data protection practice manager compared being caught on an image in Google Street Views to being captured by a film or TV news camera.
“It would not be in the public interest to ‘turn the digital clock back’,” he said.


“In the same way, there is no law against anyone taking pictures of people in the street as long as the person using the camera is not harassing people,” he said.

“In a world where many people Tweet, Facebook and blog, it is important to take a commonsense approach towards Street View and the relatively limited privacy intrusion it may cause.”


The Information Commissioner will continue to monitor Street View as a way of regulating the service.


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Google Street View is raising massive amounts of controversy in the UK. Home owners and celebrities are worried about their personal privacy and today for the very first time a Google representative addressed these concerns while being interviewed live on GM.TV. So what is all the fuss about and is our privacy really being infringed?


Google Street Views is a new generation of 3d mapping service which has been integrated into the existing Google Maps and Google Earth systems. It allows users to virtually walk or drive down a 3d photographic representation of a road. Street view was launched in the US over 2 years ago and the service has just rolled out in the UK. It’s important to point out that less than 1% of the UK’s roads have currently been mapped by the service and Google Street View will only be able to map public roads, so the service will only show the view a member of the public would be able to see if they were to actually drive down the road itself. The images are not live, they are a combination of static photographs which have been stitched together to give the impression of a 3d environment. Google plan to update the service every 2 years.





Liam Gallagher, of Rock Band Oasis, was spotted outside a London pub in Regent’s Park Road. The 36-year-old singer looked to be wearing sunglasses, a dark t-shirt, shorts and black glasses. The original image of Liam, where he is seen pointing at the camera, has now been removed by Google but a second image is still available to view. Gallagher can be seen on Google Street View by typing 49 Regent’s Park Road, London into www.maps.google.co.uk


Liam Gallagher was spotted on the new web service by Craig Cooper, 45. He said: “If there’s one man you’d recognise having a pint it’s Liam Gallagher. He’s quite often in the Queens. He must be the most high-profile celebrity to be caught on Google Street View.”


A spokesman for the band has acknowledged that the sighting could “very possibly” be Liam Gallagher. He remarked that the star and his brother were both “stuck in London doing nothing” in June around the time the image was taken and after England failed to qualify for the Euro.


Privacy International has put forward a formal complaint to the Information Commissioner about the service invading people’s privacy. Google automatically blurs all the faces of people caught on the images and offers a removal service where users can report and request removal from the service.


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