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.


Article Written by Creative SEO, Search Engine Marketing Agency

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Internet Giant Google is launching a new service which will allow internet users to virtually stroll around towns and cities. The service which has been available in the US for over two year is now set to launch in the UK tomorrow. Cities in France, Italy, Spain, Austria, New Zealand and Japan have already been added to the service and the UK is the latest country to benefit.

So how does it work? Cars painted with the Google logo, mounted with giant 360 degree video cameras on 4 foot masts, have been driving around UK streets taking millions of 3d images. The images are subsequently stitched together to create a 360 degree street view which takes the form of a virtual reality video. The service will allow anyone in the world to stroll down a 3D representation of a street from the comfort of their own home.

Initially major cities will be the first to benefit from the service – including London, Manchester, Birmingham and Edinburgh. More cities will be added over time and it is rumoured that Google plans to eventually map every road.

But the service has lead to great controversy, does Google street view infringe on our rights to privacy and does the service offer criminals the ability to “case out” potential burglary targets from the comfort of their own homes?

In America Google Street View has been seen its fair share of headlines. Controversial claims of infringement of privacy have been backed up by the removal of some 3D imagery. One such image, which was removed by Google, showed a woman exposing her underwear while getting out of a car and another showed a man entering a “sex shop”. It’s important to point out that the images are not live but are a snap shot of the moment in time the Google 3D Camera passed down the street. Google plans to update the images every one to two years.

A Google spokeswoman said: “Google works hard to make sure that our products respect both users’ expectations of privacy, and local privacy laws, in each country in which they are launched. Google Maps Street View is no exception.”

The service will be integrated into Google Earth and Google Maps. If the service is available in a specific area an icon of a small man will change from grey to yellow, the icon can be found on the “zoom slide” in the map interface. If the icon is then dragged onto the map the street view area will be highlighted and a street can then be selected and viewed in 3D.

Technorati Tags: 3d street view, 3d street view uk, Google, google maps, google maps uk, google privacy, google street view, google street view uk, street view uk