Google received another request on Friday to stop its Street View service, this time from a group of Japanese lawyers and professors who say the service violates their right to privacy.Talking to Reuters, Yasuhiko Tajima, a professor of constitutional law at Sophia University in Tokyo, said, "We strongly suspect that what Google has been doing deeply violates a basic right that humans have. It is necessary to warn society that an IT giant is openly violating privacy rights, which are important rights that the citizens have, through this service."
Tajima heads the Campaign Against Surveillance Society, a Japanese civilian group that wants Google to stop providing its Japanese Street View service and to delete all saved images.
Launched in May 2007, the service has come under harsh criticism due to privacy issues. A feature of Google Maps and Google Earth, Street View offers a 360-degree view of the scenery alongside roads, allowing users to take a virtual walk down streets covered by the service.
Neowin reported earlier this year, on an Australian man who was captured in a drunken sleep on the grass outside his home, when one of Google's camera-mounted cars passed by. Similar cases have occurred across Japan, the United States and Europe, including one case where a man was caught exiting a strip club.
Both Google Earth and Google Maps have previously come under fire from various countries, for providing images of military bases and other sensitive areas. Google agreed in March to remove pictures of the pentagon from their map services.
Besides, Google's just made public what Governments have been doing with satellites for years
If I want to see the streets of Tokyo, I have two choices... see it with streetview or go there in person. Are these so called "privacy advocates" suggesting that I'm not allowed to see the PUBLIC streets of Tokyo if I go there? It's not different. If I am freely able to go and see the same visual detail with my eyes as streetview shows online, there is nothing wrong with that.
Besides, some might argue that streetview is actually better for privacy than the naked eye as your eyes don't tend to blur out the faces of people on the street, at least not while sober
Not true. You actually have three choices. Location View (www.locaview.com) provides the exact same service for some of Japan's largest cities, including Tokyo, and if my understanding is correct, they provided this service before Google did. Why is this group not taking issue with that company?
This is silly. If people choose to enter a strip club, or pass out drunk in their front yard, or make out in a public street, their privacy is not being violated. If Street View's cameras don't catch them, others can, i.e. news cameras, and photographers who post their pix to blogs, Flickr, Webshots and other publicly accessible websites. And in Japan's case - locaview.com was doing it first.
Have you ever actually used Location View? I've just finished virtually traveling quite a number of obvious residential streets in Tokyo. About the only way these images offer more privacy than Google's is that their resolution is lower than Google's.
Privacy and cultural issues aside, it makes sense that Locatio View would include imagery of these areas - one of the most practical uses for an application like this is the ease with which you can check out a neighborhood to which you're considering moving.
But this is one case where I'm on their side. I simply do not see how this is a violation of privacy. There is no expectation of privacy for public scenes. And Google does a good job of blurring things out and modifying the images so that anything even remotely concerning is left out. I think they're actually doing more than the law would require.
I dragged the "street view dude" onto a random location in the middle of the U.S. and took a look around. Here is a sample shot:
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=38.5666...536110108275576
Now, in front of that house, there is a car. If that were my house, and I could make out the license plate, or found some other privacy concern, there is a "report concern" link right in the bottom of the image. I presume that this link can flag issues not previously blurred by Google for review and blurring if determined that some privacy issue may exist.
It also works out good for when you are going somewhere and you want to see what it looks like.
Static, published images, vs. the changing images of a live situation.
It's not just one street or city corner we're talking about here, it's a huge portion of the civilised planet and counting - Thousands upon thousands of miles. Sure, some people will and have been caught out, but the chances are higher that someone's going to catch you on their own camera and publish it.
maybe there is a way for google to do this? it would take more than one pass, and it wont be picture perfect, like there might be a few artifacts here and there and stuff, but it would be alot better than the shots taken straight from the streets they're using now...
DUHHHHHHHHHHH Do ya think so?!?!?! This has been widely known for a long time. The only part of it that's still news is the fact that they're STILL doing it. "Do no evil", ha ha, PLEASE, was that supposed to confuse us? Trick us? Or does it help Google sleep at night on it's huge pile of money?
Hey, all you tin-foil-hat-wearing google hating paranoid imbeciles: Listen up. Public streets are (:gasp
Now, is that clear enough for you? Do you need me to get you a map? You do!? Oh, well it just so happens that Google Earth and Google Maps can provide such maps for you. Thank you and have a good day.
The issue is that we have a company that is deliberately making a concerted and organized effort to take pictures of public areas for the express purpose of publishing them on the internet for indefinite periods of time.
That can raise some issues, and I do understand the position of those who might find this a concern. And this is a different matter from people being able to see you on the street, passing by, or taking random pictures of things. What we have here is a company making a concerted and organized effort to do this, with the assurance that these photos will be published online, intended for public viewing.
I'm not saying this is right or wrong, just outlining why this might be a concern for some.
The issue is that we have a company that is deliberately making a concerted and organized effort to take pictures of public areas for the express purpose of publishing them on the internet for indefinite periods of time.
That can raise some issues, and I do understand the position of those who might find this a concern. And this is a different matter from people being able to see you on the street, passing by, or taking random pictures of things. What we have here is a company making a concerted and organized effort to do this, with the assurance that these photos will be published online, intended for public viewing.
I'm not saying this is right or wrong, just outlining why this might be a concern for some.
The problem with that argument is this: THERE IS NOTHING ILLEGAL ABOUT WHAT GOOGLE IS DOING! Privacy laws vary around the world, but the one nearly universal thing is that anyone (companies included) can take a picture of anything in a public place, and there is not one damned thing you can do about it. The same argument is used against photographers who take pictures at public beaches (especially topless or nude beaches) and post them online. The law is almost always on the side of the photographer.
What I'm surprised about is that more people in some of the European cities that have Street View haven't raised more ruckus over privacy. On those narrow streets with the superior resolution of the imagery over there, you really can see into some of their windows.
How would you administrate that? How would you prove you live at that address? Should your building be removed from photos, or skipped over? What happens if your building is not the only one in the shot? What about flats? What about public gardens in front of your house?
Or, or, or... it's not that simple, or feasible.
Commenting has either been disabled on this article or you are not logged in. Click here to login or register, its free!
Note: Anonymous commenting is disabled in order to keep the quality of responses to a high standard.