Privacy concerns over Google Maps Street View miss the point. It’s an online guidebook that’s no more of a privacy concern than geotagged images on Flickr, or other photo sharing web sites.
According to reports on the BBC.
“A formal complaint about Google’s Street View has been sent to the Information Commissioner (ICO). Drawn up by privacy campaigners, it cites more than 200 reports from members of the public identifiable via the service.”
Google has far more potent personal data about you. If you’ve got a Google account have a quick look at Google History. It is a historical record of your search habits. Hit the web history button and Google will record every web site that you visit. The privacy and use of this data is much more of a concern to me.
I think the reason there is so much annoyance in the UK about it, and yet most American seem to think it’s ‘cool’, is down to a standard tolerance within all of us about how much we’ll take being caught on camera. Since the UK already has more CCTV per capita than any other country, I think people here are more sensitive to even more cameras being trained on them (and ooh, aahh even MOBILE ones!!! If they can move, there are no limits to what they could capture!)
Also people get embarrassed when others can see their front door and catch them in the act of cheating on their partner:-)
Give it a couple years and there will be a huge media backlash in the US on the number of cameras trained on people, too. It’s the new world we live in.
well said Wadds. People get upset about the funniest things don’t they? “A photo of me has appeared online, noooooooo!”
Poeple seem to have accepted all the Gmail snooping too now – I still find that particularly intrusive, the reading of private and personal (although probably not that interesting) messages. But I guess that an element of personal data intrusion is the price to pay for a free web experience..I am quite fatalistic about it all, should I be more fired up?
My initial response to the headline of this article was the same as yours – who cares – all our data is out there anyway unless we never use the internet and walk around with a bag over our head (which will probably lead to being stopped and searched).
But the same BBC article goes on to point out the potential danger to a woman who has separated from a violent partner but is identifiable on Street View outside her new house – this seems a genuine and understandable concern.
Better processing will no doubt remove these concerns by more completely obscuring faces and car reg nos etc. Maybe google should have spent more time Beta testing and maybe the next big FMCG will be masks
Like what Simon says, my prediction is that Google will get pressured into blurring people’s bodies along with their faces. You really can recognise a person from the gait, clothes, etc. So we all look like something out of the TV show Hereos when they walk through walls.
I just hope they don’t catch the dumpster currently overflowing with construction byproducts in front of my house! I’m embarrassed enough my neighbors have to live with it, much less the wider world.
I don’t see how a formal complaint is really going to get anywhere. It’s pretty much the same issue that people have been banging on about for years. As far as I know, if a photo captures you in a public place, there’s nothing you can do about it – a photographer only needs your permission if you’re snapped in private.
I don’t see the problem – Google Street View is about as much of an infringement of privacy as walking down a public street. It doesn’t even let you snoop in people’s windows! These people need to get over themselves.