Street View UK Gets The Official Nod

In spite of complaints, Britain's Information Commissioner has said Google's Street View should go ahead.

There have been a total of 74 complaints about Google’s Street View since in launched recently in the UK, and that doesn’t count the villagers who surrounded a Street View car and prevented it photographing where they lived.

But the Information Commissioner has stated that the services actually carries just a minor risk of invasion of privacy and can go ahead, and that removing the service entirely would be "disproportionate to the relatively small risk of privacy detriment."

David Evans, the Information Commission’s senior data protection practice manager, told the BBC:

"It would not be in the public interest to ‘turn the digital clock back’."

"In the same way, there is no law against anyone taking pictures of people in the street as long as the person using the camera is not harassing people."

"In a world where many people Tweet, Facebook and blog, it is important to take a commonsense approach towards Street View and the relatively limited privacy intrusion it may cause."

Google said:

"We recognize that a small minority of people may not wish their house to be included in the service which is why we have created easy to use removals tools."