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Google Begins Blurring Faces In Street View

Posted by kdawson on Tue May 13, 2008 03:57 PM
from the middle-ground-in-range-of-both-sides'-fire dept.
Privacy Businesses Google The Internet
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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[+] Google Street View Raises Privacy Concerns 520 comments
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."
[+] Technology: Google's Street View Meets Resistance In France 201 comments
Ian Lamont writes "Google has begun to scan the streets of Paris as part of its Street View service, but the company may be hindered from publishing them unedited. The reason? French privacy laws. Google may be forced to blur faces or use low-resolution versions of the photographs. The Embassy of France in the US has a page devoted to French privacy laws, that says the laws are needed to 'avoid infringing the individual's right to privacy and right to his or her picture (photograph or drawing), both of them rights of personality.'"
Submission: Google begins blurring faces in Street View by mytrip (940886)
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  • Anonymity (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Descalzo (898339) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @03:59PM (#23395830) Journal
    This is the nice thing about living in a town no one cares about/knows about.

  • Kudos to Google! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Colonel Korn (1258968) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @04:00PM (#23395836)
    It's been awhile since a Google post on Slashdot has focused on the company improving our privacy. Good work!
    • Well, I don't know... the one about blanking out maps of China sure seems to improve privacy.
      • They let Chinese people read /. ? (just a joke in case anyone is itching to use some mod points.)

      • Re:Kudos to Google! (Score:4, Interesting)

        by nbert (785663) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @04:21PM (#23396108) Homepage Journal
        Ignoring the sarcasm: There's a big difference between a country requesting to blur out parts and individuals not wanting to appear in certain areas. It's a good thing that they blur out faces and I was quite surprised that they didn't consider it before Street View launched.

        IMO governments have to be as transparent as possible for a good reason. It's a different story if you as a "normal" person walk by a brothel or sit in a park (half-) naked. It all depends on the time the google truck passes and I don't see a reason why we have a right to see these people the moment they were photographed...

        • Re:Kudos to Google! (Score:5, Insightful)

          by TubeSteak (669689) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @06:11PM (#23397344) Journal

          IMO governments have to be as transparent as possible for a good reason. It's a different story if you as a "normal" person walk by a brothel or sit in a park (half-) naked. It all depends on the time the google truck passes and I don't see a reason why we have a right to see these people the moment they were photographed...
          The government should be as transparent as possible because it is of and for the public.
          Walking by a brothel or sitting in a park (half-)naked also happens to be in public.

          Why wouldn't "we have a right to see these people the moment they were photographed..." in public?

  • blurred post! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 13 2008, @04:01PM (#23395846)
    jngpu gurz hfr fbzr erirefvoyr zrgubq yvxr ebg13, gubfr abbof

  • Other uses for this technology (Score:5, Interesting)

    by muellerr1 (868578) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @04:03PM (#23395882) Homepage
    It would be cool if there were an option on sites like Facebook or Flickr to blur the faces on my photos for anyone but my friends.

    With technology like this, I wonder how far away Google Image Search is from being able to search image content?

  • Print a giant face over your storefront (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SkyMunky (249995) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @04:13PM (#23396006)
    Print a giant face over your storefront/building just to see what happens.

  • Blurred beyond recognition? (Score:5, Funny)

    by DaveM753 (844913) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @04:14PM (#23396026) Homepage
    Damn...there goes my 15 minutes of fame.

  • What privacy concerns? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fahrbot-bot (874524) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @04:17PM (#23396060)
    Google has begun blurring faces in its Street View service, which has spawned privacy concerns since its introduction last year.

    My understanding is that people in public should have no expectations of privacy. Or is that just a U.S. thing? Furthermore, as their algorithms get better, will Google skip blurring the faces of famous people? They certainly have no expectations of privacy in public.

    • Re:What privacy concerns? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Moridineas (213502) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @04:19PM (#23396078) Journal

      My understanding is that people in public should have no expectations of privacy. Or is that just a U.S. thing?
      Actually, in the rest of the more civilized world, you're not allowed to look at people without their permission. Just one more way in which the US is lagging behind!

    • Re:What privacy concerns? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by thomasdz (178114) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @04:32PM (#23396250)

      My understanding is that people in public should have no expectations of privacy.


      That's an overly simplified view. Are you saying that in public it should be legal to be able to take pictures of anybody from any angle/viewpoint? (eg: upskirt)
      Can I take my parabolic microphone and start recording people's conversations 100 meters away and then post the conversations on the Internet?
      Why can't people walk around with no clothes on in public if they aren't doing anything weird or being "sexual" (whatever that means)?
      If there are no expectations of privacy, then what's the problem? (sarcasm)

      I would modify your "no expectations of privacy in public" to "reduced expectations of privacy in public"

      • Re:What privacy concerns? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by AxemRed (755470) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @05:07PM (#23396676)
        You're getting away from the point though. Google isn't taking up-skirt pictures. They aren't using a telephoto lens. They aren't recording private conversations. And no one is walking around naked! Google is taking pictures from a normal vantage point.

        Are we going to start going after the newspapers and TV stations too? After all, they take plenty of videos and pictures of places where people and standing around in the background and may not realize that they're being photographed or taped.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by AxemRed (755470)
          ...and to bring up another point, I just took a vacation to New Orleans. I took several pictures of my friends in Jackson Square, and there were plenty of random people standing around in the background. Did I somehow violate their privacy by posting my vacation pictures on Flickr?

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by JanneM (7445)
          He's completely on point. The parent poster asked if we should have any expectations of privacy while in public. He shows that yes, we do have some expectations on privacy; the discussion is thus about what those expectations should be. You can't, for instance, take a picture of somebody, then use it for commercial purposes without their explicit permission (look up "release form"), and Google is probably dangerously close to be over that line already.

          A newspaper and a television station has very free rein

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by BasharTeg (71923)
          Google is taking pictures from a normal vantage point.

          Yeah, a normal vantage point if you're standing on top of a van looking into everyone's backyard.

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by AxemRed (755470)
            This is a very big and important difference. Google isn't taking a handful of photos as art, or even as casual snapshots. Why should the case law that protects common, everyday photography also cover what they're doing?

            Or a better question... Why shouldn't the law protect it? Are people really that afraid of being in a random photograph taken on the street?

      • Re:What privacy concerns? (Score:4, Informative)

        by Fozzyuw (950608) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @05:08PM (#23396688)

        That's an overly simplified view. Are you saying that in public it should be legal to be able to take pictures of anybody from any angle/viewpoint? (eg: upskirt)

        Interesting that you should say that [bbc.co.uk]... as this was a recent BBC article I read. And it's not even "upskirt", it's just taking pictures of peoples behinds. Of course, the best part is the last sentence...

        He might have some explaining to do when he finally gets home.

        • And the upskirt stuff, yes crosses a privacy line but thats done very stealthily, taking pictures from a giant van with cameras on top of it doesn't really resemble stealth.

          So it would be OK to go around taking upskirt shots as long as you told people you were doing it, even if they didn't want you to?

    • Re:What privacy concerns? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by joe_bruin (266648) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @06:10PM (#23397336) Homepage Journal
      The expectation for most of us is that there is no random, permanent, publicly displayed record of where we go and what we do, regardless of whether we do it in public or not. That is, in public we don't have privacy, but we generally have anonymity, and street view busts this. Yes, it's entirely possible that someone will take a picture of you and it will end up on the news or the internet. But for people doing something that is generally not newsworthy but they may want to keep private, there is an expectation that this will not happen. This is the same reasoning that makes people opposed to RFID tracking. Yes, someone can follow you around in their car and make notes of what you do, but that is different from a systematic logging of where you are which could happen at any time and any place.

      What if a Google camera catches you: ...buying drugs? ...walking into your ex girlfriend's house? ...entering an abortion clinic? ...picking your nose? ...hanging out in front of a gay bar? ...attending a communist party meeting? ...golfing on Sunday? ...doing something you don't want your friends and neighbors finding out about?

      Most of these things may not mean anything to you, but they may mean a lot to some people. Now, if Google announced "we will be taking pictures of this street at 4pm on Monday, don't be there if you don't want your picture taken", that would be a perfectly reasonable solution to this whole thing.

    • Re:What privacy concerns? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by croddy (659025) * on Tuesday May 13 2008, @06:36PM (#23397568)

      It is a gross oversimplification to say that once in public, one should have no expectation of privacy.

      People have to go into public to do normal things. This does not mean that any level whatsoever of data gathering on your public activities is acceptable. Certainly would you see the privacy implications if Google were to attach a GPS unit to your car and record where you drive -- sure, you're driving in public, but that does not mean it would be okay for Google to record detailed records of your trips. Likewise it would be inappropriate for Google to follow you with a video camera. Perhaps you don't, but a lot of folks feel that intermittent still images taken by Google's drive-by surveillance crews are also too invasive.

      The advancement of photographic and image processing technology has introduced privacy concerns that existing laws could not foresee. The ease with which massive amounts of personally invasive information can be gathered, analyzed, and then distributed in bulk has changed the way we should think about privacy -- even privacy in public.

    • The issue is that Google is publishing identifiable pictures of people without having secured a model release from the people in the picture. Really dumb on Google's part - I wouldn't be surprised if they get still hit with a bunch of lawsuits - what they are doing now is to head off having even more lawsuits filed against them.

  • Awwww (Score:5, Funny)

    by DeadPanDan (1165901) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @04:23PM (#23396134)
    They should have used Laughing Man logos. You blew it Google.

  • Other applications? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Digestromath (1190577) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @04:26PM (#23396158)
    Could these enhanced algorithms be used to blur the faces of the hideous women I bring home from the bar? If not in real time, I'll accept them being blurred in my memory.
    • Try improving your Alcohol algorithm, I hear the Tequila sets work very well but you might have to apply Lime and Salt.

  • Slashdot has this story totally wrong (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 13 2008, @04:26PM (#23396164)
    Google isn't blurring faces in the photos, but is actually blurring people's faces. Somehow, the Googlebotmobile blurs peoples' faces as it drives by, and so far no one has figured out a way to undo it.

  • I'm so relieved! (Score:5, Funny)

    by dsouza42 (1151071) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @04:42PM (#23396362)
    Looks like Google also cares a about horse privacy [google.com]. That's really great! I woudn't want anyone recognizing my horse if he's caught doing something embarassing out in the street.

  • so where are Brin and Page's houses? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by EllynGeek (824747) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @04:55PM (#23396532)
    And kids, and vehicles, and visitors...this is such utter crap. "Do no evil" indeed. You can't just say "do no evil", you have to actually do no evil to have any credibility.

  • Google has been developing this for some time. (Score:4, Informative)

    by lhaeh (463179) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @04:57PM (#23396556)
    This article [blogoscoped.com] from a year ago shows that Google has had public implementations of facial recognition for some time. Simply appending &imgtype=face to a Google image search URL will just show images of faces.

  • Why not blank? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nameer (706715) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @05:06PM (#23396664)
    Why blur? Haven't we learned yet that the goal is no information, not less information? O.K., this is probably not one of those cases where someone will go to the trouble of trying to deconvolute the image. But really, just drop a white circle over the face and be done with it. Blurring gains nothing and leaves trace information.

  • Privacy exists in private places, not in public (Score:3, Interesting)

    by aristotle-dude (626586) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @06:35PM (#23397562)
    Why do people expect privacy on a public street? It is called the "public" for a reason. I do not feel that Google should bother censoring anything that occurs in the public eye.

  • Why blurr? Use mine for free! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Serindipidude (939235) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @09:58PM (#23398758)
    Don't waste CPU cycles blurring the image. Just past my face over everyone else's. I don't mind at all! Anyway, people who don't want to be recognised in public should know better that to leave home not wearing a burka.

    • Re:Can you focus out-of-focus pictures (Score:5, Informative)

      by Lobster Quadrille (965591) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @04:19PM (#23396074)
      You can't add pixels that aren't there, and an out of focus picture is effectively a lower resolution.

      You can, however, apply statistical analysis and AI learning techniques to guess the likely locations of pixels. In that way, you can sharpen a photo somewhat, though it may be inexact. My understanding is that contextual analysis is the next step- if you have pictures of a person and a blurry person, and have more pictures of that person and less-blurry people, you can make predictions about who the fuzzy people are.

      Of course, I wear a beard so that I'll always be fuzzy.

      • Re:Can you focus out-of-focus pictures (Score:5, Informative)

        by pavon (30274) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @06:01PM (#23397256)

        You can't add pixels that aren't there, and an out of focus picture is effectively a lower resolution.
        No, it isn't. Think about an unfocused camera - all the light is still hitting film/CCD, it is just spread out. So from an information theory point of view you haven't lost any data, you just put it into another form. If you consider what would be a single point of light, the energy in that point is spread out in a normal distribution (aka bell curve, aka gaussian). So the blurred image is just all these Gaussians functions overlayed on top of each other. Computer blurring algorithms do pretty much the same thing.

        From a signal processing perspective, this is the same as convolving with a Gaussian. And if you take the Fourier transform of that blurred image, you get the transform of the image multiplied by the transform of the Gaussian (which is just another Gaussian). From there all you have to do is divide by this Gaussian, take the inverse transform, and walla, you have the desired non-blurred image. This is called a deconvolution [wikipedia.org], and I've written code to do this for an image processing class.

        There are some caveats. You have to guess how blurred the image is - what focal length is and what not. Noise and compression can kill you, so you need to filter those out first (or limit your deconvolution filter to low frequency content). In addition at the edges of the image (or edge of the blur boundary) information is genuinely lost as the gaussian falls outside the boundary and is discarded.

        Focus Magic [focusmagic.com] is a commercial package that refocuses blurred images, and they have some interesting sample photos.

        • Re:Can you focus out-of-focus pictures (Score:5, Interesting)

          by pavon (30274) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @06:16PM (#23397392)
          Oh, one other caveat, is that when you quantize the blurred image (assign each pixels a discrete, say 24-bit, value), you will also loose some information.

          Furthermore, I should mention that given the size of peoples faces, and the amount of blur that Google is likely to use, the entire blurred section will be near enough to the edge to loose significant information, so it is unlikely that much recovery will be possible.

          So, nothing I said was really applicable to this situation :) I was just surprised myself to learn that a blurred image is not the same as a lower resolution image, and so I thought I'd share.

      • Re:Can you focus out-of-focus pictures (Score:5, Informative)

        by Solandri (704621) on Tuesday May 13 2008, @06:07PM (#23397314)

        You can't add pixels that aren't there, and an out of focus picture is effectively a lower resolution.

        You can, however, apply statistical analysis and AI learning techniques to guess the likely locations of pixels. In that way, you can sharpen a photo somewhat, though it may be inexact. My understanding is that contextual analysis is the next step- if you have pictures of a person and a blurry person, and have more pictures of that person and less-blurry people, you can make predictions about who the fuzzy people are.

        This is wrong. An out of focus picture is not lower resolution. All the original information is still there, it's just been smeared in a mathematically consistent manner - something called the point spread function of the lens [wikipedia.org] at that degree of misfocus. It's very possible to mathematically focus a misfocused picture [focusmagic.com] after it's been shot. The main barriers are not knowing the particular lens' exact point spread function, sensor noise (the de-convolution spreads the sensor noise to adjacent pixels), and grid resolution. But the site I linked to shows you can still get pretty decent results using a generic PSF.

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