Japanese Lawyers Want To Shut Down Google Street View
Japanese lawyers want to shut google street view down because they feel like it violates a basic right that humans have. Privacy is the concern and Google Street View is something that can literally get right in your face.
I have always been impressed with Google Maps. I think the technology behind the creation of this service is absolutely amazing. Inside of Google Maps is another enhancement called Google Street View. This new addition to Google Maps was introduced to the world back on May of 2007. Since that time it has grown at an astounding rate.
Google Street View is a service that provides users with a 360 degree panoramic view of just about area of interest. Since May of 2007, the coverage areas have expanded to thousands of locations in the United States as well as many locations around the world, including Japan.
Amazingly, the photos were taken from cameras that were mounted on many vehicles that traveled throughout these thousands of different locations. These images were then ported into Google Maps / Google Earth, allowing the end user to view, in very fine detail, close up panoramic pictures of various locations of interest.
One of the problems that Google has faced is that people feel their privacy has been violated if they discover that their face has been captured in these images. Very quickly after the launch of Google Street View, Google begun incorporating a face-blurring feature to Google Street View in an attempt to satisfy the concerns of the people who have had their face captured in these images.
What do you think? Does Google Street View violate the privacy of the thousands of people who had their photo taken without their permission for millions of other people to see? What are your thoughts on Google creating the face-blurring technology to distort the faces of the thousands of people captured in these images? Lastly, what would your reaction be if you discovered that your body and face was captured in one of these images in your home town?
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8 comments
I absolutely love Google Street View, and find it very useful. In fact, I like it a lot better than I like lawyers in general.
Seriously, it is not clear to me how this is a privacy issue. They are only increasing the number of people that can see a person was somewhere. Anyone else on that street that day already saw the person who was captured on film. I think the face-blur is meeting people more than 1/2 way.
Mark
I don’t know how this is a privacy issue as well since it’s taken on private streets and if you happen to be in one of these videos than tough. It’s just like a security camera. The fact you don’t know it’s there, the better. I love the technology.
I don’t think it violates any privacy issues at all and the only ones that would be worried are ones that were caught doing something that they shouldn’t be doing. Sort of makes you wonder what made the Lawyers want to get involved in the first place. Someone must have put them up to it.
I think public is public and if you are in it then you are public. When Google starts looking into our homes then I’ll be jumping on the privacy wagon. oops, I hope I didn’t give them any ideas. Who am I kidding, their probably working on looking into our minds by now.
Seriously though, I like the Street View feature and it’s tough not to admire Google from pulling such enormous tasks like that off. Nice post Garry.
Hi,
I had to laugh at the this post, I would have though that every lawyer in the world would love live feeds from every major intersection in the world streaming into their offices.
At least that way when an accident did happen they would get the heads up before the ambulance chasers arrived !!
All the best,
Paull
http://www.paullhamilton.com
There are some cases where its an invasion of privacy, for example when the car drives around a street and you have kids playing in your yard, or your garage doors or windows open free for the world to look inside. As for being there in person, I call that a privilege.
Next time I see the Google car, I’m totally going to cut it off or follow it while making signs in my back window
I think I can see both sides of this issue. In some cases I can see how it would be soemthing quite undesirable, but at the same time, with the thousands of images available, the likelyhood of your particular image being viewed is actually quite slim.
Another thing I see is that it might help “bad guys” check-out and “case” a given location to a certain extent so that when they get there they can act as if they’d been there before.
I think I really am on the fence about this because I can see good and bad in both aspects of it. I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens.
These street views are not exactly a “Live Feed.” They were taken during a drive by on a one time deal, so what you see is what it was at the time.
There is no security issue here. Google has taken steps to blur faces and that is good enough.
Japanese lawyers are seeing Yen symbols.
Now the London Police Department, that’s another story. Don’t try to get away with anything on the queen’s territory.
Rich Hill
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