Street-scene photographs added to Google Maps and Earth last week capture passers-by in delicate situations and have privacy advocates accusing the world’s most popular Internet search firm of breaking its own “Don’t be Evil” code. Google’s “Street View” feature weaves photographs into seamless panoramas of parts of San Francisco, New York, Las Vegas, Denver, Miami, and renowned technology Mecca Silicon Valley in northern California.
“What Google does is not illegal, but irresponsible,” said Rebecca Jeschke of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a US non-profit group dedicated to defending Internet freedom and privacy. “Google Street View technology has been an intrusion of privacy to many people captured in their pictures. They could have waited until they developed technology that would allow them to obscure peoples’ faces.”
“Everyone expects a certain level of anonymity as they move about their daily lives,” EFF attorney Kevin Bankston told AFP.
Google says photographs are taken down or replaced in response to complaints.
You can’t please all of the people all of the time.
Found by Bubba Martin.
If you don’t want your picture taken don’t go out into a public space.
There that should kill two birds with one stone…
In England they have to depend on the government to put up CCTV cameras to see people doing everyday things. Here in America we are much more advanced because we privatized the same thing so it can be monetized.
But it is so cool! *Agree with #1*
on any given day in NYC one gets photographed about 1000 times (average) by all sorts of security cameras, atms, shops, buildings etc…If you add to this amount the tourist shots that end up on flikr and the likes this number could be easily multiplied by 2, your face can be anywhere on the net. if u want privacy stay at home or wear a barka when u get out! 😉
I’m curious about this “certain level of anonymity.” How many people can watch you in real life before that level is exceeded?
Does this mean we no longer can have cheering individuals up on the video replay screen at a football game? Should we rename the space around streets something other than “public space?” Can you also sue if your look-alike is caught walking in a public space? Can artists sue if their copyrighted public works of art are seen in a commercial broadcast?
RBG
Maybe Google is going a little too far with this. After gushing that they had “cool new technology” allowing them to eavesdrop in your HOME by turning on your computer microphone remotely, then feeding what it “hears” into some marketing software, I am starting to not like this Google.
http://tinyurl.com/ga4am
The whacks need to get over it. When Headcasting http://tinyurl.com/2b2rmz goes huge, how many times a day do you think your picture will get streamed though the webtubes?
IT IS NOT LIVE!
It is not like you can see someone on the computer eating a salad and they run to the corner and see the same thing.
sure the pics are somewhat current, right now, but how often will the data get updated?
There is a lot more data out there about you that tells us more than just what you look like.
#6 – Privacy advocates are not “whacks”
—
That said, I am a staunch privacy advocate and I say that my fellow whacks need to get over it.
There are many, many, many, and many threats to privacy worth speaking up about. Google’s ability to see a snapshot of a public place is NOT a threat to privacy.
I can see the technology abused in other applications, but privacy advocates should not waste time attacking technology. There is no stopping technology. There is no putting genies back into bottles. We should only cry foul at the misapplication of technology and that isn’t happening here.
If terrorists can webcast beheadings with impunity, it won’t take long before microdot cameras everywhere will webcast everything in the world that there is to see.
RBG
I’ve got nothing to hide.
#9 – poor phrasing on my part. I meant nothing about privacy advocates. I was just referring to those against this issue. EFF does a lot of good, they’re just off base here. Google Streets is harmless and way cool.
It’s harmless until its a picture of you captured in an unflattering light.
I routinely walk by some seamier venues on my way to work. Frankly I wouldn’t want to repeatedly explain to people who happen to see me pictured in front of one that I wasn’t a patron. Nor do I want to take a more indirect route in case some Google Van might be around.
Google should be held to a different standard.
They have an audience of millions and a single snapshot from a white van gets propagated all over the world. They are using this (indirectly) for commercial gain. The “good” is not worth the potential harm.
Just one more comment. In an era when people are denied degrees and employment based on relatively innocuous pictures found on myspace and places like that, this should be taken seriously.
I added here the best Street View.
If anyone complains, Google quickly removes the offending photo(s).
[Double post. – ed.]
This is a discussion that has been taking place for some time. Personally, I agree mostly with this take: http://www.unboundedition.com/content/view/741/50/
I’m glad it’s Google, but still, we need to think about where it’s going. Sure, Google may not be doing “evil” now, but what about 10 years from now?
As much as I think Google is evil, I don’t think that these images are any different from other images captured in public spaces.
Top 15 Google Street View Sightings
http://tinyurl.com/yu6de2
14, 5, and 2 are especially funny
If you don’t want the world to see what you’re doing, then don’t do it in a place where you can be seen by the public.
There’s a whole new category of tech that has been developed to address this very issue; the products have various names, such as “drapes,” “fences,” and “clothing.” 🙂
#22, Lauren, when the folks at Google start using that new infrared camera tech , those solutions won’t help and we’ll all be really honked. 🙂
Google — we know where you are and we know what you want.
Attorney Kevin Bankston obviously has never been to Britain.
So this means I should stop picking my nose, digging in my ass, and having sex with random people in public?
#25 – Just don’t do all 3 at the same time. 😉
Hell, I’m looking forward to the day when Google Earth lets me see what my dogs are doing in the backyard in realtime while I’m in the house wasting time bloviating on DU! ROFL!
#26 – Hell, I’m looking forward to the day when Google Earth lets me see what your wife is doing in the backyard in realtime while I’m in the high rise condo overlooking the Loop wasting time bloviating on DU! 🙂
Didn’t read the rest of the comments. No need, no argument. Public places are public places.
Old Wives’ Tale: “Don’t masturbate, sell drugs, pick up hookers, pick your nose, or pull your underwear out of your ass-crack in public.”
Pay attention to the Old Wives, they’ve been around longer than any of us.