More Google Street View privacy problems
p2pnet news view Advertising | P2P:- p2pnet has been pointing out privacy problems with Google advertising hook Street View since the day it was launched.
Complaints have been pouring in not only from individuals, but also governments, around the world.
Ask Beatle Paul McCartney.
But with Gargle, it’s Gosh Golly! We’re definitely going to do something about it — promise promise, delay delay, fudge fudge.
Now, “We’ve found many instances where people’s faces aren’t blurred,” assistant federal privacy commissioner Elizabeth Denham says, according to the Canwest News Service.
In some cases, “the face of KFC’s Colonel Sanders or faces on billboards captured in shots are blurred instead,” story has her saying.
This’ll come as no surprise to p2pnet readers.
We’ve reported numerous instances in Canada and Switzerland were Google blurring technology has served little purpose other than to provide fodder for press releases and news statements with Gogle claiming it’s doing something about the problems.
In Switzerland, the faces of people coming out of abortion clinics were clearly visible, p2pnet reader Marc discovered.
In Canada, faces and car licence plates were crystal clear in Street View images.
And in British Columbia, “Within hours of its launch,”privacy commissioner David Loukidelis said he’d be contacting Google, “over early reports of adults and children being clearly identifiable in Street View for Vancouver and his own concern over the area outside the Hotel Vancouver, where he said, ‘certainly if you were the person in the picture you’d recognize yourself’”.
In testimony last June, Jonathan Lister, the head of Google Canada, “left the door open to arguing the company’s collection of cartographic images be exempt from the consent provisions of Canada’s private-sector privacy law,” says Canwest, quoting him as telling the House of Commons privacy and ethics committee:
“I’m not a legal expert, so I can’t make a legal judgment call and I shouldn’t speculate. It’s reasonable to assume that, given the history of mapping as an artistic enterprise, precedent has been set that maps are considered to be a form of artistic expression.”
However, under certain circumstances, “this could pose a danger to children captured in street-level images if a company argues their work constitutes art,” says Denham in the story: “That raises the spectre of a company not blurring faces at all, and that predators could then obtain the information”.
Companies “may argue that they qualify for that exception,”she said. “On the face of it, I think this argument is problematic as it doesn’t seem to me that this is an artistic endeavour.”
Meanwhile, is giant online advertising company Google trying to reduce the impact of the storm of complaints by posting phony comments on sites which are critical of Street View? Only Gogle knows for sure.
Cerainly, fake forum posts are nothing new.
Stay tuned.
(Cheers, Marc)
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
Paul McCartney – Google misnumbers Paul McCartney’s house, May 28, 2009
Canwest News Service – Better privacy protection needed on Google Street View, MPs told, October 23, 2009
clearly visible – Google Steet View at Swiss abortion clinics, September 22, 2009
crystal clear – Google Canada Street View faces and plates, October 9, 2009
you’d recognize yourself’ – Google Street View ‘panned’ in BC, October 9, 2009
nothing new – Firm nailed for fake testimonials and forum posts, July 15, 2009
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