EU Chafes at Google Street View

The European Union's Data Protection Supervisor sees potential legal concerns with bringing Street View there, and has warned Google to act accordingly.

Google just can’t seem to get a break with Street View. After drawing the ire of privacy advocates in the U.S. when it launched last summer and getting a preemptive warning from Canada’s privacy commissioner that the service may not be legal there, the European Union has now also expressed concerns over bringing Street View to its cities.

According to Reuters, the European Union’s Data Protection Supervisor, Peter Hustinx, sees potential issues with Street View. “Making pictures everywhere is certainly going to create some problems,” he told reporters at a press conference on Thursday, although he did not cite any specific laws Street View would conflict with.

Hustinx seemed to suggest that Google could keep Street View legal by modifying it for Europe, the same way it has already planned to do for Canada. “Respecting data-protection laws is central to Google’s business,” he said. “Success or failure for them in Europe will depend on them respecting the laws. They are smart, I’m confident they won’t ignore the laws.”

Although Google has not yet officially announced its intentions to debut Street View in Europe, extremely conspicuous Google-branded photo cars have already turned up in Italy, indicating the company is probably gathering data for the project now.