ICO Has Concerns Over Street View

Britain's Information Commissioner has said he has privacy concerns over the face-blurring technology in Google Street View and will be contacting the company.

Britain’s Information Commissioner has expressed concerns over whether the face-blurring technology used in Google’s Street View photos breaches the Data Protection Act.

Street View is already is use in the US and has just been released in Europe, covering the route of the Tour de France cycle race.

A spokesperson for the Information Commissioner’s Office said:

"We will be contacting Google about visibility, and about the contactability of the people in the photos. We will be asking Google whether it will be following its US model [where faces are blurred and those pictured can have themselves removed]. There could be privacy concerns if the people are identifiable, because the images are available to anyone who can log onto the internet. We will be looking at what [laws and regulations] Google could be breaking before speaking to them."
According to ZDNet, Privacy International has responded to a letter from Google on the issue in which the company refused to release details of the technology on proprietorial grounds. Google’s senior privacy counsel, Jane Horvath, wrote:

"As with all such systems operating at this scale our blurring technology is not perfect — we occasionally miss a face or licence plate, for example, if they are partially covered, or at a difficult angle. However, we tested the technology thoroughly before launch and I am confident that it finds and blurs the vast majority of identifiable faces and licence plates. For the few that we miss, the tools within the product make it easy for users to report a face or license plate for extra blurring. As always, users can still ask for their image to be removed from the product entirely."