Google’s Street View continues to add to the locations it has available to view at street level, but one area of the world may get no coverage at all.
Japan, with its relatively strict privacy laws, has a growing contingent of people against the use of Street View. Google has the service available in twelve Japanese cities right now and likely intends to expand to further locations in the region as it is doing around the world.
The opposition to Street View in Japan has now gotten to the point where it is being seen as an invasion of privacy and a group of journalists, professors, and lawyers have decided to take action. A petition was sent to Google Japan last week demanding that the search giant turn off the service.
Google blurs the faces of people who form part of its Street View captures, but the opposition in Japan is based on privacy infringement for areas, not just people. In the petition the group state that Street View:
constitutes violent infringement on citizens’ privacy by photographing residential areas, including community roads, and publishing their images without the consent of communities and citizens (and) more easily, widely, massively and permanently than ordinary cameras and surveillance cameras do.
Read more at the AFP article
Matthew’s Opinion
When you think about it who does Street View really benefit? I am not questioning the importance of mapping the globe and offering us better information when trying to find destinations, but does Street View really help?
This isn’t the first time the privacy issue has been brought up with regards to Google’s mapping service. In August this year their photographers were accused of virtual trespassing by entering private roads and taking pictures.
So what do you think? Would a picture of your street and your house be ok on Street View? What about if you were visible in the house, but your face was blurred out? I think displaying locations of interest in major cities is great, but beyond that I think you have to ask the question why?
I don’t see how having photographs at street level is a privacy issue… if you can walk or visit there, then there is little difference.