Is Google’s Street View Service Too Much?
The EU data protection agency in Europe is concerned by the fact that Google’s map service has the ability to focus on street level images and place them on the Internet. Google’s Street View has the ability to give users 360 degree, ground level views of a specific street in 30 different cities in the U.S.
Many drivers enjoy the new service – but there is still some controversy over the fact that the program may intrude on certain people’s privacy. “Making pictures everywhere is certainly going to create some problems,” European Union Data Protection Supervisor Peter Hustinx stated.
Hustinx hopes that Google will be made aware of their laws and will take them into account before introducing the new service in Europe. “Apparently there is the capacity to adapt this in different modes,” he said, referring to technical possibilities of limiting what images were published online.
Already Google has been approached by the Pentagon to remove certain online images from Street View because they were a security threat to certain U.S. military bases.
Others have complained that they have pictures of themselves all over the internet while they are sun bathing or walking out of strip clubs for millions to see.
For now Street View has not been introduced anywhere outside of the United States.