Google Faces UK Street View Problems

As Google starts taking pictures prior to a UK launch of its Street View mapping tool, a privacy group says it's breaking data protection laws and might refer the plan to the Information Commissioner.

Google’s Street View mapping tool, which matches photos of locations – including the people who are there are the time – to maps, is die to launch in the UK soon. But one group, Privacy International, feels it breaks UK data protection laws by showing the faces of individuals in the pictures, the BBC reports.

Street View is already in use in the US. Where people have complained about being included in a picture there, Google has removed them from the shot. Now the company is experimenting with an algorithm that recognizes and blurs faces, but Privacy International has doubts about the technology.

"We’ve spoken to Google in the past about this and received a snide response telling us to look more closely at their blogs,” Privacy International’s Simon Davies told the BBC.

"We’ve been told by engineers at Google that the technology is not ready to be deployed."

Under UK law if a person is shown in a photograph that’s used for commercial purposes, that individual needs to give permission.

Privacy International has given Google seven days to respond to a request for more information on its face-blurring technology. If it doesn’t receive a satisfactory answer, it’s threatening to go to the Information Commissioner to have the Street View service suspended in the UK.