Czech Republic
In the Czech Republic Street View has been banned since September 2010 by the Czech Office for Personal Data Protection after more than half a year of unsuccessful negotiation between the Czech Republic and Google. The Office described Google’s programme as taking pictures “beyond the extent of the ordinary sight from a street”, and that it “disproportionately invade citizens’ privacy.” However pictures taken before this decision (mostly in 2009) may remain available online but Google is obliged to erase every picture from that period shall it be disputed.”[21][22]
[edit] European Union
A recent demand from the European Union would require Google to warn local residents before sending out the cameras. It also requires Google to keep the unblurred versions of the photos no longer than 6 months, instead of no longer than a year. Google was instructed to give advance notice online and in the local press before photographing.[23]
In 2010, Google announced that it might cancel Google Street View service in the European Union due to unmanageable requests of the
European Commission
n the first days of launch the UK service drew criticism due to privacy.[25] Images were found of a man leaving a sex shop, a man vomiting and another man being arrested. Some images were removed including those surrounding Downing Street.[26][27]
The service drew criticism in Belfast that it represented a "reckless" security risk, particularly for showing the exteriors of army bases and police stations so soon after the killing of two soldiers in the 2009 Massereene Barracks shooting, and a police officer.[28]
Soon after the launch human rights watchdog Privacy International
sent a formal complaint about the service to the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), which cited more than 200 reports from members of the public who were identifiable on Street View images. Privacy International director Simon Davies said that the organization had filed the complaint due to the "clear embarrassment and damage" Street View had caused to many Britons. He said that Street View fell short of the assurances given by Google to the ICO in July 2008 that had enabled its launch, namely that privacy would be protected by blurring faces and vehicle licence plates, and asked for the system to be "switched off" while an investigation was completed. He said the few cases where Google's face blurring system had failed meant the data used by Street View would fall under UK Data Protection legislation, which requires that subjects give permission for the use of information concerning them.[29]
Davies subsequently sent an open letter to Google chief executive Eric Schmidt, accusing the company of briefing journalists against him, claiming Davies was biased in favour of Microsoft. Google has pointed to connections between Microsoft and data protection consultancy 80/20 Thinking, run by Davies, and has said that Davies' connections to Microsoft should be made clear in public, as the credibility of his criticisms is undermined by the fact that he acts as a consultant to companies who are direct rivals and critics of Google, a fact Davies rarely discloses in press releases or comments.[30]
However, on April 23, 2009, the Information Commissioner ruled that although Google Street View carries a small risk of privacy invasion it should not be stopped. They ruled that "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". They also ruled that Google Street View does not contravene the Data Protection Act, as an image of a house held on Street View is not a data protection matter, as data protection is about people's personal information.[31][32]
On April 3, 2009, it was reported in the press that residents of the village of Broughton in Buckinghamshire formed a human barrier to stop a Google car from photographing the village,[33] expressing fears that it was "invading the villagers' privacy" and "facilitating crime".[34] As also reported in the press, contrary reactions have come from some Internet users, who have called on people to "descend on the village to snap their own perfectly legal photographs".[35]
On May 21, 2009, Google Street's privacy issues got some attention in the tabloid press, after it was revealed that Google's facial recognition technology automatically blurred out the face of "The Colonel" on the shop signage of Kentucky Fried Chicken stores "to protect his privacy", despite the fact that Harland David "Colonel" Sanders, upon whose image "The Colonel" is based, died in 1980. A spokesperson for Google defended the decision as "it shows how good our facial recognition technology is".[36]
In October 2010, Google admitted to accidentally downloading passwords and e-mails from unprotected wireless networks across the United kingdom
Denmark
According to a Danish media lawyer, Oluf Jørgensen, Google's practice of photographing people on private property is illegal. The Danish data authorities advices people,
who are photographed by Google, to turn Google into the police.[37]
Switzerland
In November 2009, Switzerland's Federal Data Protection and Information
Commissioner Hanspeter Thür announced that his agency would be suing Google because in Street View "numerous faces and vehicle number plates are not made sufficiently unrecognizable from the point of view of data protection".[49]