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Google Street View Raises Privacy Concerns
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Jun 01, 2007 07:42 AM
from the we-see-everybody-now dept.
from the we-see-everybody-now dept.
Pcol writes "The New York Times is running a story about a woman who says her cat is clearly visible through the living room window of her second-floor apartment using Street View and that she has contacted Google asking that the photo be removed. 'The issue that I have ultimately is about where you draw the line between taking public photos and zooming in on people's lives,' Ms. Kalin-Casey said in an interview. 'The next step might be seeing books on my shelf. If the government was doing this, people would be outraged.' Wired has started a contest on the most interesting photos found using the new Google Tool that now includes sunbathing coeds, alleged drug deals, and the google van itself. 'I think that this product illustrates a tension between our First Amendment right to document public spaces around us, and the privacy interests people have as they go about their day,' says Kevin Bankston, a staff lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation."
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Google Sued Over Privacy Invasion On Street View 481 comments
mikkl666 writes "A couple from Pittsburgh has sued Google because a photo of their house appeared on Google Street View. They are demanding in excess of $25,000 to make up for the 'mental suffering' and the diminished value of their home. Their street is apparently marked with a 'Private Road' sign, and they claim that putting a photo of their property online is an 'intentional and/or grossly reckless invasion' of their privacy. Google, on the other hand, claims that this lawsuit is pointless since anyone can ask them to have pictures removed without legal action. We've previously discussed some of the privacy concerns surrounding Street View."
[+]
Google Begins Blurring Faces In Street View 170 comments
mytrip notes a News.com article reporting that Google has begun blurring faces in its Street View service, which has spawned privacy concerns since its introduction last year. Google has been working for a couple of years to advance the state of the art of face recognition. Quoting News.com: 'The technology uses a computer algorithm to scour Google's image database for faces, then blurs them, said John Hanke, director of Google Earth and Google Maps, in an interview at the Where 2.0 conference...' Google wrote about the program in their Lat/Long blog."
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not just her cat (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:not just her cat (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I found Street View to be useful. I live in New Jersey suburbs, close enough to go to NYC on occassion, but I don't live or work there. It gets awfully confusing trying to find my way through there. Map websites helped with this. Hybrid view in Googlemaps helped more since now I can distinguish areas by large patches of color in a top-down view.
Now with
Re:not just her cat (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Well that's perfectly reasonable (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
No it isn't. (Score:5, Insightful)
It'd be perfectly reasonable if her blinds were closed (which would lend credence to them 'invading' her privacy)
But it isn't even remotely reasonable because she keeps her blinds open! If you don't want someone to take pictures of you, or see you doing the nasty, or anything else inside your house, close your blinds, otherwise you have no expectation of privacy, either from the government, or from your fellow citizens.
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Re:No it isn't. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, no, no. You can't be expected to be living out of a dungeon (or in your parents' basement if that sounds more familiar for
Interestingly enough, this sort of thing makes "regular" people the victim of what celebrities have had to endure increasingly for a long time. I'm sure there are many readers of tabloids enjoying the latest mega-zoom-lens pictures of Jennifer Aniston eating her bagel in bed, whilst complaining that the Google-van is invading the oh-so sacred privacy when taking pics from the streets.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No it isn't. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not the one picture that matters, it's the general principle and the precedent and expectations that are being set.
Either our privacy matters, or it doesn't. Either someone taking a photograph of the inside of another's home is an invasion of their privacy or it isn't. If privacy matters, and someone taking a photograph of the inside of another's home is an invasion of that privacy, then as a simple matter of principle, taking that photograph should not be allowed.
If you don't draw the line there, in fairly black and white terms, then in a few years you have many people/organisations taking many photographs of many other people, and the data mining goes beyond simple invasion of privacy and starts leading to people being actively damaged by those who have compiled comprehensive information about them.
But by then, it's too late to stop it, because the damage was already done the moment you decided it was just one photograph so it didn't matter.
Oh, and it's not paranoia if they really are out to get you. As you point out yourself, the British government already is well on the way to constant video surveillance of the entire population.
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Re:No it isn't. (Score:5, Interesting)
So not having your blinds wide open is "living out of a dungeon" then? Blinds have a variety of settings, and most of them allow privacy. Even some of the settings that let light in the windows protect privacy.
But the real question is: what is the hysteria about? I understand the preference for privacy, but I don't understand the desperate, hysterical need for it. What's the tragedy when a little privacy is lost? (Normally, in matters where privacy is more valued, people tend to be discrete.)
It's not like Google is trying to force anyone to do anything. They aren't trying to steal anything from anyone. No extortion. No blackmail. No motives at all really, except to sell ads by helping people avoid getting lost.
So what should I be scared of? There's some great danger lurking out there that you folks seem to know about, but I don't. I'm ignorant of the horrible peril I'm supposedly in. Please tell me.
Parent
Re:No it isn't. (Score:5, Insightful)
A fictional company that dumps toxic waist in a residential area may not have a motive to kill off the residence. They may simply see it as cheap way to dispose of waste, making them more profit. Similarly while google might not have a motive to destroy privacy they are doing so. In all situations people (companies are run by people) need to consider the public benefit. If a product or service does more harm then good to the public as a whole, then it needs to be removed, even if it is profitable.
If it is not removed by the company then it should be removed by the state.
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Re:No it isn't. (Score:5, Insightful)
Trollish comment aside, here's why I can't believe that:
Your Comment presupposes that liberty is what I want to do, and not what others see me doing.
You want people to freely do whatever they wish with their windows open, without someone watching. Guess what? People can and will watch, and unless your blinds are closed, or they are on your property, what they are doing is simply an extension of their rights as citizens. The same rights you have.
If you don't want people to take pictures, or watch you, close the blinds. You cannot complain, and certainly cannot sue or try to get someone in legal trouble because they 'invaded' your privacy by taking pictures in a clearly open window.
Parent
Re:No it isn't. (Score:4, Insightful)
Did you know that police in the UK have recently taken to asking people to spy on their neighbours? One of the main warning signs of someone growing drugs illegally is apparently that they always keep their curtains drawn/blinds closed. So sorry, but if you do that, you're obviously a drug dealer and will be reported accordingly. Then the police will come and arrest you on suspicion, take you down to the police station, hold you without charge for a while, and forcibly collect a sample of your DNA to be added to the largest DNA database in the world (and to be left there even after your release, since the current administration removed the legal requirement to destroy such samples if nothing came of the arrest).
See, the thing is, I have different expectations. I expect a little common courtesy from my fellow citizens, to be considered innocent until proven guilty by my government, and to be left alone by businesses I don't wish to deal with. I don't go around looking through all my neighbours' windows and recording what I see. I don't go around arresting policemen in the street because I suspect that they're going to abuse the increasing range of summary powers they are being given. I don't have time to spy on all the executives and shareholders of my local supermarket looking for those extra gifts for ladies they buy when I know their wife just bought one last week anyway. What happened to doing unto others as you would have done unto you, representative government, respect for the privacy of others, and a general sense of common decency? Is expecting these things really so unreasonable or unusual, or is your comment just a sign of how low our standards have dropped?
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Re:No it isn't. (Score:4, Informative)
-jcr
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Re:No it isn't. (Score:5, Insightful)
Most laws that might defend some of your privacy are not intended to protect your privacy, but rather your wallet. You can sue the crap out of someone for using your image/likeness (thats why TV shows always have those waivers) especially if its for a commercial purpose.
I challenge you to find those laws you are talking about. I would be willing to bet if you walked down the street taking pictures through peoples windows, and the police got called on you the only thing that would happen is they would tell you to stop. Maybe worse if you look like a terrorist
Technology is rapidly changing our whole environment. You may notice from observing people that they hate it when their own privacy is violated, but they will violate someone elses privacy in a heartbeat. What happens when everybody (not just your big brother) has cameras and access to the internet? Well, the definition of privacy will change. It has already changed quite a bit, ignoring the big brother surveillance going on, we can look at facebook and myspace. People over 40 generally don't go near these sites because they feel like it would violate the hell out of their privacy, yet students and youngsters use these sites to broadcast their lives to the internet everyday. A lot of slashdotters mourn the loss of privacy with stories about governments and organizations using technology to invade our lives, but sooner rather than later we are going to see our brothers and sisters have the capability to do the very same.
Personally, I think its quite exciting to see how we will adapt to the changing environment. Has anyone ever talked to an old person (over 60) that hates cell phones, or only carries one during the day because they feel like they have no privacy if they carry it at all times? We picked up cell phones like they were there all along, and I believe we will do the same with cameras+gps+internet.
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Re:What I would do... (Score:5, Interesting)
You know that brings up an interesting thought. What if someone hangs a 2A0 goatse picture on their wall, or is sitting in the living room jacking off to girls gone wild (thinking about the co-ed discussion further back). Google comes along and shoots it in the street view. So now we can zoom in and see this. Where does this fall?
1) Invasion of privacy
2) Distribution of pr0n by google
3) Public obscenity by the person who's house it is?
(/. caveat:- If you don't like the examples please insert your own, my point is about the various ways of looking at the implications of the situation)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yep. As has been noted before, there is a big difference between a one-off observation of something anyone can see in a public place, and the systematic collection and reuse of data. There is also a big difference between what you can see in a public place, and what you can see from a public place using invasive surveillance technology to observe something that would normally be regarded as private. Similar issues arise with everything from store loyalty cards to CCTV to the UK government's proposed ID card
Re:Well that's perfectly reasonable (Score:4, Insightful)
For example, what you buy has always been public knowledge, and someone could have from the beginning of time followed you around every time you went to a store and see what you bought, and published this wherever he felt. They could also sit in on every court hearing and see who has been arrested in their neighborhood recently and sent out a newsletter broadcasting the fact. However, until very recently this would have been ridiculously costly and a waste of time. The computer age has made this cheap and easy to do.
Many people don't realize that the deeds to their property is public property, and a sufficiently nosy neighbor could have always went down to the town hall/court and looked up what everyone on their block paid for their house (this is usually listed on the deed).
Same thing with satellite and street level views. You are on a street and taking pictures, there is nothing illegal about this. All those tourists taking pictures in Times Square have tons of total strangers in the background. Some of them may be picking their nose- are you violating their privacy if this gets published? Twenty years ago, even if a picture like that got published, you might be exposed to a little embarrassment for a short period of time in whatever localities happen to read and saw that picture, but thats it. Nowadays that can make you an overnight Internet star, causing lasting and widespread humiliation.
How we deal with these issues is going to be a hot topic for the next few years while things get sorted out. However, I don't think we had any more privacy in 1960 than we do now, except for the cases where we now have to show ID to do things like board airplanes. Today we have the technology to easily collect and connect the dots on all these pieces of information that used to be difficult to obtain.
Parent
Re:Well that's perfectly reasonable (Score:5, Insightful)
People should either:
- get over it and accept people can see/find things that you do in public
- close their blinds or otherwise reduce the amount of their lives that are visible to the public.
It seems entirely obvious that if there is something you don't want seen by strangers, you should take efforts to keep it out of their sight. It's entirely possible to have a private life, just not in public spaces.
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Re:Well that's perfectly reasonable (Score:5, Insightful)
Generally, if you can take a picture of it while standing on your own land, or on public land, then it's legitimate. People are generally understood to not have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" if they can be seen doing what they're doing from a public street.
Parent
Google can see her, but she can't see Google (Score:5, Insightful)
A true statement and a valid point, but there's a piece missing from the "walking down the street" analogy that seems to be eluding most of us. When a person walks down the street and looks into a home through a street-facing window, it's extremely unlikely that the window is actually a one-way mirror that only allows viewing in. So yes, they can see what's inside, but anyone inside can also see them. Stop and think about that for a moment, because it's a natural check-and-balance mechanism that, in my opinion, should not be left out of these sorts of privacy discussions: While you can't deny other people the right to look at you in public without your permission, it's only fair that you get to look at them at the same time. If nothing else, it's reasonable to at least have the opportunity to know who is looking.
But with Google Street View, or the Zaio Corp. database [azstarnet.com], or any similar endeavor, you don't get that courtesy. Even if you were lucky enough to spot the camera in the ten to fifteen seconds it was visible, you still don't know how many millions of people just looked into your life at that moment. And don't forget this is Google we're talking about: among other things, the new background checker for lazy hiring managers, who naturally have your home address at the top of your résumé. Suddenly anyone who lives in a Street View-covered area had better:
For the record, I like Street View. I've been hoping Google would add something like that for some time. But don't gloss over the privacy concerns by equating walking down the street and looking through a window with driving a van down hundreds of streets taking millions of photographs and associating them with street addresses on the world's largest search engine. Only one of these makes your private life public, and it's not the first one.
Parent
There's a solution to that (Score:5, Funny)
And that will be the end of google views.
Parent
I'd complain too (Score:3, Funny)
I'm so sorry, I just couldn't resist it...
Old news... (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, copyright law states (IANAL) that you can take pictures of people in their homes from the street. Only no zooming, and with (I think) a 55mm lens at best. Look up the case law. The only think I think that may be challenged in court is if high res photos at 55mm constitutes some kind of new zoom...
Re:Old news... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
"Best Urban Images" (Score:5, Informative)
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/05/request_f or_urb.html [wired.com]
But... if you can see it from the street,... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure I understand the objections. If I go to a strip club, and I am seen leaving it, well, then, I was a douchebag for not being sneakier about it, if I don't want anybody to know.
Is the problem that the photos are being published on a widely-used web page?
Re:But... if you can see it from the street,... (Score:4, Insightful)
What happened to "Just because you can do something, that doesn't mean you should"?
By the kind of argument you (and, to be fair, many others in this discussion) make, we should just ignore all laws and societal conventions, and be mercenary about doing anything that advances our personal interests. If you are disadvantaged when someone else does this, well, you should have defended yourself better, taken out more insurance, hidden away more, not gone out, paid in cash, not walked past the front of the adult movie store and coincidentally looked over your shoulder just when the photo was taken, not bought three items on the same day which in combination coincidentally trigger a terrorist threat warning...
So, where do we draw the line?
Exactly two things have changed today, in the context of privacy, from a few years ago: technology has improved to make it much easier to spy on people and data mine info about them; and people (actually, mainly businesses and governments) have become almost militant in their desire to capture as much information as possible about everyone, all the time. This is a very dangerous combination, which if left unchecked will inevitably lead to the erosion and ultimately the destruction of our basic quality of life. Just because we can do something, that really doesn't mean we should.
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i could've told you what kind of cat she has... (Score:5, Insightful)
this is only news-worthy because it has a couple buzzwords like "google" and "privacy concerns". meanwhile, the people who are actually tapping your phone/internet traffic/watching you continue to perpetrate *horrendous* privacy violations, and nobody cares because of watered-down crap like this. if we're going to be morally outraged by something, let's pick something actually scandalous, m'kay?
Personally (Score:5, Interesting)
We were dying laughing for nearly 10 minutes thinking about a big google van driving through the slums and taking panoramic photos.
Christ we are geeks.
Don't think she has a case... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
By living on that street she has consented (implicitly) to giving up privacy for the sake of location and convenience. She has consented (implicitly) to privacy loss by keeping the windows open. She has also con
Re:Don't think she has a case... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Google is the new Microsoft (Score:3, Insightful)
The main difference is that Microsoft always spoke of itself as a profit-making business. Google pretends to be something "better".
Yes, give it a decade, and of course people will hate Google as much as they hated Microsoft, and it will behave as abusively as Microsoft did during its heyday 5-10 years ago. But I don't want to enjoy the monopolisation of various Internet features, and the other fallout, that comes of its steamrolling in the meanwhile.
What happened to the entrepreneurs like Hewlett, Packard and Olsen, who actually built amazing new stuff to become world leaders? Google haven't done nothing, but the evolutionary step they made to put them where they are even pales in comparison to what Microsoft did for the PC.
Bad time to be leavin' the strip club (Score:3, Funny)
Invasion of your given away privacy (Score:3, Interesting)
I wish there could be like true blue public forum based discussions on these matters so people can get a true perspective of reality before wanting their 15 minutes of fame. Would I be mad if Google passed me by on the street while I was scratching my crotch... No. Would I be upset if they filmed my cat? No. Home? No. Would I be mad if it was constant (so called antiterrorism foobar cams)... Yes.
Even more interesting than seeing a Cat (Score:4, Insightful)
Cue "In Soviet Russia" jokes. (Score:5, Insightful)
The UK is just as bad. We refuse to extradite a Russian oligarch to Russia to stand trial on numerous serious charges ranging from fraud to terrorism, then complain when the Russians won't extradite a Russian to us to stand trial for murder. But of course we are the good guys.
Parent
If you look closely (Score:3, Funny)
If you look closely at the cat in the picture
You can see the cat looks desperate to get out of the house and away from the crazy lady.
Perhaps we should band up and conduct a rescue raid.
Privacy vs. technology (Score:4, Insightful)
What's wrong about seeing that old woman's pussy (juvenile crowd, silence please)? You could stand in the street, look up and behold, you would've seen the same. That cute fuzzy thing.
The difference is that you would have to have been THERE, exactly THEN, to behold it. This moment is now frozen forever, for everyone to see.
Now imagine a FF to the not-so-far future, when it becomes technically possible to do such things not only as snapshots, but continuous. Perfect live streams from everywhere to everywhere. Yes, the technology is already here, but I'm talking absolutely ubitiquous. "Google street view" gives you the current live pictures from whatever corner of the world you want to be on.
Kinda scary if you ask me. Stalking's never been easier. It would be trivial to follow a person throughout his or her life.
"Close the blinds" kinda doesn't cut it. Every halfway remotely free country on this planet defines your home as some kind of sanctuary, where even the state can't simply waltz in and do what they please. Here, it's illegal to explicitly spy into the windows of houses you can look into. When you take a picture of a house, you have to get the (written) OK from every single owner of an apartment in the house whose window you might be showing in that picture, if you want to publish the picture.
I'm kinda surprised that no law like this exists in the US.
Re:Privacy vs. technology (Score:4, Insightful)
Once you get away from the kneejerk 'OMFGWTFROFL stupid lawsuit, stupid woman, stupid cat' response, there's an important issue at stake. I sure as hell don't want pictures of me broadcast over the net without my permission. Doubly so if the perpetrators are making money off that, however small my contribution may be. To me, crystallising that moment of my life without my permission takes it out of the public domain and into your domain. If any of you want to come watch me engage in my daily activities, that's cool, at least until I call the cops or slap you upside the head, but don't you dare broadcast those images without my permission.
Parent
They explained this at Google Developer Day (Score:4, Informative)
What they're doing is not illegal, as other posters have pointed out, and they seem pretty receptive to the privacy concerns. Kudos to them for doing something very useful with some sort of conscience.
Going back to the Village (Score:4, Insightful)
For centuries, families have lived in squalid one bedroom homes where the entire family slept and did other things in the same bed. Everyone knew everyone's business. When the founding fathers thought of privacy they were thinking of the privileged.
I think it is extremely silly to expect privacy to last.
we are living in an age where the average person can get equipment to see through walls, record conversations or videos, and do background/financial checks from their desk.
Two things are going to happen....some people are going to be annoyed by what they see and want to stamp it out....and some people are going to say 'so what? I saw something like that last week.'
The real question is when the offended person tries stamp out the activity are you going to defend it even if you don't do it?
attention whore (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
That's almost precisely the same line the Bush administration used to justify residential wiretapping. You're playing with fire there. People should have the right to privacy in their own homes. I say it's okay for Google to photograph a house's exterior, but not the interior.
Parent
100% dead on (Score:4, Insightful)
namely:
1. government baaad
2. google gooood
i was just reading the comments under the story about anti-forensic disk tools [slashdot.org] and the level of paranoia about a hypothetical situation involving disk access by the government was everywhere. and all around was an evisceration of the 'if you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to hide' attitude
and then, bam, you turn around and read this story, and 'if you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to hide' is a synopsis of the attitude of a lot the posters!
dear slashbots: your prejudices are showing. what you need to do is pick an ideological position on privacy, and apply it equally to google and the government. because when you use a double standard on privacy in regards to a darling internet company versus the bad ol usa government, you are revealing some pretty flimsy stereotypes and prejudices on your part
in fact, you could make the case for worrying about google more than the government. given the legal bonds that tie the hands of the government, usually populated by incompetent bureaucrats, as opposed to what the highly competitive cutthroat corporate business environment might drive its employees who are caltech and MIT and stanford PhDs in their field to do, i might worry a whole HELL of a lot more about what google is doing with my privacy than the usa
one would hope some of you would aspire to be a little less transparent and hypocritical and shallow and see-through in your beliefs. on the issue of privacy, you better upgrade your attitude of the us government to that of your attitude towards google, or downgrade your attitude of google to match your attitude towards the us government. but overly excusing google and overly indemnifying the us government is not an intellectually or morally coherent position for many of you
Parent
Re:Privacy (Score:4, Informative)
To put it in perspective, my family has a home at the beach. My mom bought a large picturesque window for the front so they could look at the beach. It also happens to be by the TV. So, anytime people are watching the TV inside, people outside can look in.
My mom complains about this all the time. "It's late at night. People are relaxing while watching TV. Why do they have to look in?" My response is always the same: "Why did you put the window up?"
People have a right to privacy, but if they're "flaunting" their interior with windows and no curtains, how far does Google have to go to ensure their privacy? Same thing with my family's home. It's a nice house. Should we be up in arms when passersby take pictures of it? Should we freak out that they're potentially taking pictures of us watching TV?
The answer, like most things in life, is simple: put up curtains.
Parent
Re:And they missed the obvious moral high ground.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
"Coeds"? (Score:5, Interesting)
Offtopic, I know, but "sunbathing coeds"? As in "sunbathing students of both genders" or as in "sunbathing women"? Why do we refer to women like they're anomalies at academic institutions?
At my school, we have something like 60% women... should we call men "co-eds"?
Go ahead, mod me down as offtopic, but this kind of thing irks me.
Parent
Re:check local laws (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand, a single photograph on a single day of someone's private property is _not_ (in my mind) an invasion of privacy... it's just happenstance. You are not systematically documenting someone's life, only getting a single picture at a point in time.
Friedmud
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