Some of the photographs added to Google Maps and Earth last week capture people in situations that have privacy advocates up in arms. The world’s most popular Internet search firm is accused of breaking its own “Don’t be Evil” code, according to an AFP report.
Google’s “Street View” feature displays seamless panoramic photos of select cities across the country, including parts of San Francisco, New York, and Silicon Valley in northern California.
“With Street View, users can virtually walk the streets of a city, check out a restaurant before arriving, and even zoom in on bus stops and street signs to make travel plans,” Google said on its website.
Google used a fleet of vans equipped with special cameras to amass 360-degree imagery of major US cities during the past several months and said it planned to add more urban areas to the service.
Privacy advocates assert that Street View provides offensively candid photos of unwitting victims. An image taken on a San Francisco street shows a woman sitting in a truck with her underwear peeking out above her jeans.
Other snaps show men apparently urinating on the street. Young women in skimpy swimsuits are pictured sunbathing near Stanford University, the California alma mater of Google’s founders. A man is shown entering a pornography shop.
In other images, one couple can be seen embracing while another couple gets intimate on a bus stop bench. A homeless man pictured sitting with his dog on a street corner reportedly has died since the photo was taken. There is a picture of a man climbing a home’s security gate.
Wired Magazine has asked online readers to vote for “the best inadvertent urban snapshots … be they citizens flaunting [sic] the laws or hot dog vendors rocking a sweet style.”
In the U.S., there is no law barring photographs of people in public places.
“What Google does is not illegal, but irresponsible,” said Rebecca Jeschke of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a non-profit group dedicated to defending Internet freedom and privacy. “Google Street View technology has been an intrusion of privacy to many people captured in their pictures. They could have waited until they developed technology that would allow them to obscure peoples’ faces.”
In Miami, another city for which Street View is offered, abortion clinic director Elaine Diamond expressed concern over a Google Maps picture of protesters outside the facility.
“I wish they [Google] would replace it,” Diamond said. “I couldn’t contact them. I tried quickly. It’s not easy.”
Diamond expressed that women visiting abortion clinics are under enough stress without the added fear that Google Maps might show them entering or leaving the facilities. Operators of places such as drug, alcohol or sexual health clinics worry about protecting their clients from the stigma of being pictured in Street View.
Google says photographs are taken down or replaced in response to complaints. The company also stated it worked with shelters for battered women and children to avoid potentially endangering with photos those who seek shelter services.
“Everyone expects a certain level of anonymity as they move about their daily lives,” EFF attorney Kevin Bankston told AFP.
“Street View only features imagery taken on public property,” Google said in its defense. “This imagery is no different from what any person can readily capture or see walking down the street.”