Google's Street View fleet to hit the streets
- 03 November, 2009 18:43
- Comments (10)
Australian residents can look forward to a visit from one of Google’s snap-happy vehicles, as the search giant has recently announced an update to its Street View offering. But one privacy group is cautioning Google needs to take more care with its photography.
In a blog post, Google product manager Andrew Foster announced the update, along with changes to the company’s policy on sharing its images.
Foster said unwanted images will be kept for one year by Google for internal use to enable technological improvements.
Despite being a popular feature, Street View has endured much criticism and has run into problems with privacy advocates worldwide, after it was revealed a number of inappropriate images were made available.
While Google maintains users can still easily report an image of themselves and have it removed, the Australian Privacy Foundation (APF) has urged the company to take more care with what it photographs.
“At the moment it’s all or nothing, if you happen to be on a public street that’s being captured, you have no choice and can’t say ‘don’t include me’,” APF board member Jan Whitaker said.
“There are terrific functionalities associated with Street View, but when it comes to living areas, neighbourhoods and sensitive places, I think there needs to be some further care taken with it.
“Until Google can refine the service into something that’s more sensitive to individual circumstances and put a little bit more care into what it’s taking photographs of, then we get into such difficulties,” she said.
Street View is an add-on to Google Maps that offers photographs of streets and cities and was launched in Australia in August last year.
From next year, the updated images of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra, Adelaide, Perth and parts of Tasmania, will be available.
The Google fleet is currently touring Australia, and residents can find out from the website in what areas the cars are in.
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Comments
Anonymous
This is getting out of control. Why would you have pictures of residential areas for public viewing. you are just making it easier for thieves who break in and cause fear among residents. They can preplan safely before their next attack/robbery! This is absolutely ridiculous! Now I am concerned for my own safety and others!!! There needs to be a law. The Judicial system seems to be sleeping and taking it all easy until it's woken up with a loud bang!
Anonymous
I disagree. In my opinion, Street View is a great tool, that makes it easier to locate places on a map. I do not believe that it has gone too far, as it would be the same thing as actually driving to the place. Whatever you can see when you drive past a place, is the same as what you would see on Street View. It's not like you are seeing what's inside someone's place, or who is currently there.
Anonymous
I have to say as a burglar, Google Street view is really lacking. The images are too blurry and you can't see into peoples windows like you can when you case peoples houses out in person. Because all burglars pre-plan their home invasions using the internet. Derrrr!
street view is great
Saved my time when finding number of the seafood shop nearby... they have edited out stuff which is private so i see no problem with them
Anonymous
We really like it, it help us identify houses when we pick stuff off of ebay, so when we are heading there it feels like we've been there before as we know we are in the right area. People who think their houses are being cased are panic merchants, really wouldnt it be much more effective to case an area in real life, burgulars wouldnt go too far from where they would normally hang out.
Also my friends who have moved here from overseas enjoy the nostalgia of visiting their home towns on googles street view theres many good uses rather than those of people who panic and enjoy scare mongering Gee!
Anonymous
If you're so paranoid to think a static, one-time shot of a house will incite theft- get thee to a therapist...
For the others who are frequenting places they don't want others to know about- stop doing it...
Geez....
Anonymous
@Anonymous 15:10 Tuesday, you should just have a cup uf camomile tea, a bex and a good lie down. Oops, nearly forgot the exclamation marks !!!
As other posts here say, the distortion and low definition in Street View images means that you see much less than would somebody walking along the public footpath, but SV is fantastically useful for navigating to a strange destination.
The panjandrums of privacy may want to live in a secret world of their own, but their tenets make life bloody difficult for everybody else. The slightest request for general information or assistance is met with a corporate "We can't help you with that - privacy laws y'know".
Anonymous
Sorry, wrong Anon referred to below - should have been "This is getting out of" @15:10 ;-)
Immortalised
If thieves wanted to break into your house, they would. And they would do it the old fashioned way, the ol' smash and grab.
People should see this as a chance to be immortalised for a couple of years.
GR
The cameras are not capturing anything that can't be seen by anyone driving/cycling/walking/skateboarding down the street. If people don't want to be seen they should stay indoors with their blinds shut!
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