There are no privacy issues with Google Street View, a Maps-based project that offers 360-degree panoramic views of various streets in cities around the US, according to Google Australia's head of engineering.
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At the Google developer day in Sydney last week, Lars Rasmussen denied that privacy was an issue when it came to Google Street View because, he said, the images are all taken in "public areas".
"So, these are all images that anyone could go out and take with a camera. We do take great care that if someone did feel their privacy was invaded, there is a way that they can easily tell us about it and we'll remove it right away.
"But all the pictures are taken in public areas where anyone could go [and] take a picture," said Rasmussen.
We asked Rasmussen if Google would blur part of an image of someone objected to it showing, for example, their front door.
He said: "Yes, but why would you want to?"
Rasmussen's comments come despite the Street View images showing everything from people urinating on the footpath to receiving a traffic ticket and possibly conducting drug deals.
Street View Launch
Street View was launched at the Where 2.0 Conference in San Francisco last month.
While using Google Maps -- which was developed in Australia by Rasmussen’s team -- if the street view feature is available, a button will show up on the maps page for the location entered.
Clicking on it brings up a window with the view and directional arrows that can be clicked on to proceed in that direction. The window can be made full screen as well, and users can zoom in on street signs, bus stops and other details.
In the company's first foray into image gathering for maps, Google workers drove vans around the selected streets for about a year and took pictures for the service, according to a Google spokesperson.
CNET News.com’s Elinor Mills contributed to this story
There is a world of difference between a single person taking a picture (who would have been visible and easily understood as doing so), and a not-so-obvious (or covert) camera creating images that are globally searchable and archived.
The separation between the picture-taker and the viewer is the first change: up until recently the picture taker would likely be a single person who would be visible to the person being photographed (or their neighbors), and usually the same person would be the viewer. Now, the picture taker is much harder to spot, and the pictures are available to millions.
technology has gone beyond what our laws were written for. Privacy law, did not contemplate the reality of the internet, because it was not possible to make images available all over the world instantly and covertly.
It's ridiculous to pretend that google's ability to allow anyone to covertly watch you from a great distance is the same as physically standing outside the house of the person you wish to observe and taking a picture.
Google folks are probably too smart to think these are the same things. If so, why are they lying?