Google Streetview and your privacy

Today the UK ICO gave it's approval to Google snapping the country's streets - sez the Grauniad:

...the Information Commissioner's Office, which had been investigating complaints, said in a statement: "We are satisfied that Google is putting in place adequate safeguards to avoid any risk to the privacy or safety of individuals, including the blurring of vehicle registration marks and the faces of anyone included in Street View images. Although it is possible that in certain limited circumstances an image may allow identification of an individual, it is clear that Google are keen to capture images of streets and not individuals."

The commissioner's office said it was satisfied with Google's online reporting mechanism, which lets people concerned about their privacy ask to have their images removed from the system.

I think the ICO is letting this one off a bit too lightly. Google's strategy is plainer in the way it is dealing with some people in Pennsylvania who objected to having their property photographed:

Arguing that technology has ensured that "complete privacy does not exist," Google contends that a Pennsylvania family has no legal grounds to sue the search giant for publishing photos of their home on its popular "Street View" mapping feature. Responding to an invasion of privacy lawsuit filed by Aaron and Christine Boring, Google has countered that the couple "live in a residential community in the twenty-first-century United States, where every step upon private property is not deemed by law to be an actionable trespass." In a motion to dismiss the Borings's federal complaint, Google's six-lawyer team asserts that, "Today's satellite-image technology means that even in today's desert, complete privacy does not exist.

In other words, your privacy can now only be asserted by your own 6-person legal team. That's a fairly strong-armed response for a supposedly benign service provider - its more usually the sort of things large evil corporates do when serious money, or music piracy, is involved. As El Reg notes, in a sharper-edged piece than the Grauniad's:

The ICO's statement makes no mention of what Google itself might do with the reams of data it is collecting.

Not everyone's concerned by Street View has had the pleasure of Google's soothing words. Privacy International, the London-based privacy pressure group was among the first to raise public concerns about the image mapping project hitting the UK, and wrote to Google with a series of questions. It has been ignored by the firm.

Privacy International spokesman Simon Davies said Street View's lack of transparency is its fundamental problem. "We've asked for details of the [blurring] technology and Google will not yield it... Google is claiming commercial secrecy, but they won't even show us how effective it is," he said. "The ICO is of course entitled to form its opinion but we'll continue to press Google."

Privacy International also asked the firm to explain if and how it consulted with the UK public on its plans, but has again been stonewalled.

One wonders what better information the ICO has to inform its decision that Privacy International clearly was not trusted to have.....

Taking pictures of your house from space, at a distance, is one thing, broadcasting it close up in precise co-ordinates to the rest of the planet is quite another. Are we the one of "the few" who think the public need to have more of a say in this?