Swiss Court Rules Against Google Street View

[Maestro]

Apr 5, 2011 - 21:28 UTC+2

Privacy and innovation clash in Google ruling

by Jessica Dacey, swissinfo.ch

Privacy advocates have praised a Swiss court’s decision for tougher rules governing Google Street View, but experts say it’s wrong to target the internet giant.

Faces and car registration plates cannot be identified in

images like this view of a Zurich street (Keystone)

The Swiss Federal Administrative Court ruled on Monday that Google must guarantee anonymity in its popular street view service, blurring faces and license plates captured in Switzerland (see Court ruling).

The court largely sided with the Swiss data protection commissioner, Hanspeter Thür, who claimed that Google was breaching citizens' right to personal privacy.

Read more: http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss_news/Privacy_and_innovation_clash_in_Google_ruling.html?cid=29931144

-- swissinfo.ch 2011-04-05

[Maestro]

An interesting detail from the court ruling in this article:

Google meanwhile says Street View already blurs 99 percent of all faces and license plates, and that a manual review would incur "prohibitively high" costs.The court accused Google of skimping on privacy concerns for the sake of making money. "All privacy breaches could be avoided, but this would entail additional costs for the defendants, as they would have to make images (even more) unrecognizable in part manually. The additional costs would obviously not, however, jeopardize the commercial survival of the defendants," it wrote in its ruling.

Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2383186,00.asp

And this one:

In addition to blurring faces and license plates and ensuring complete anonymity near sensitive areas such as schools, women’s shelters and prisons Google has also been instructed by the court to prevent private places such as courtyards and walled gardens from showing up on Street View.

Source: http://news.accuracast.com/google-7471/swiss-court-clamps-down-on-google-street-view/

In another article, which is not in English, I read that "ensuring complete anonymity" mentioned above means blurring not only the face but the entire person, including clothing. "Sensitive areas" includes also brothels and areas assigned to street-walking prostitutes.

[Maestro]

The director of the tourism authority for Zermatt (Switzerland) said that this court ruling brings Switzerland back into the stone age, and other public figures voiced their criticism:

"I just can't understand why, in a knowledge-based country like Switzerland, a tremendously useful and interesting tool like Google Street View is being targeted by our legal system," said Christian Wasserfallen, a Free Democratic Party member of the Swiss National Council. "We run the risk that of disconnecting our nation from innovative developments."

Daniel Luggen, director of a local tourism authority for Zermatt, said the ruling marked a step back into a digital stone age. Zermatt Tourism uses Street View to show its ski pistes and countryside to potential tourists on the Internet.

"The Swiss court's decision against Street View in Switzerland is worrying, to say the least," Luggen said. "The reality is that this judgement is also contrary to the wishes of millions of international web users."

Source:http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/224266/swiss_court_says_googles_street_view_breaks_privacy_rules.html

[bangkokcitylimits]

swiss rules to be implemented worldwide asap or better dump that whole streetview thing, useless crap

[BuckarooBanzai]

swiss rules to be implemented worldwide asap or better dump that whole streetview thing, useless crap

I think just the opposite to your post so hopefully my post plus your post will equal 0!

[Crushdepth]

I say dump the Swiss and let the voters sort out their government.

If you're worried about privacy look into what your phone can do and what access the authorities have to it. It's creepy.

[bangkokcitylimits]

I say dump the Swiss and let the voters sort out their government.

If you're worried about privacy look into what your phone can do and what access the authorities have to it. It's creepy.

the most thankful users of streetview are burglars, as if it's made for them. think getting burglars is your house is creepy not the govs who understand this.

google streetview is a burglars paradise, would hate it if my house was on there !!!!

Google Earth’s Street View: Service for burglers

There has been much debate over Google Earth’s Street View – which we covered in a recent poll – and a recent survey suggests that it is just a “service for buglers”. In a separate poll taken out by myvouchercodes.co.uk user felt that Street View was intrusive – this is the opposite of what our readers thought.

Their survey went on to interview 1,317 people – of which 57 percent said Google’s service was “intrusive”, while 24 percent gave the quote that we mention in our first paragraph. One of the things that have angered people the most is the fact that they were not asked for these images to be published.

[Maestro]

Jun 8, 2012 - 13:41

Court rules in favour of Google Street View

Google Street View will not be constrained to ensure that all images of faces and licence plates are obscured, the Federal Court ruled on Friday. Instead, people may ask Google to blur their image manually.

The ruling partially overturns a decision taken by the Federal Administrative Court in April last year in a case brought by the Swiss data protection commissioner. Then, the court ruled that Google’s right to pursue its commercial interests did not outweigh Swiss privacy laws and ordered the internet giant to guarantee total anonymity.

Read more: www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss_news/Court_rules_in_favour_of_Google_Street_View.html?cid=32861794

[tw25rw]

swiss rules to be implemented worldwide asap or better dump that whole streetview thing, useless crap

I think just the opposite to your post so hopefully my post plus your post will equal 0!

I'm with you. It's extremely useful.

[astral]

I wonder who long it will be before google captured images will be used by burglars?

Perhaps it is already happening?

[elwood]

swiss rules to be implemented worldwide asap or better dump that whole streetview thing, useless crap

I think just the opposite to your post so hopefully my post plus your post will equal 0!

I'm with you. It's extremely useful.

OK, I'll give you another one in favour. How does it aid burglars?

[lomatopo]

the most thankful users of streetview are burglars, as if it's made for them.

I wonder who long it will be before google captured images will be used by burglars?

Perhaps it is already happening?

Taking this argument to the next step we should do away with all maps, street names, street signs, house numbers because, God forbid, burglars might use them to find houses to rob.

Streetview has been around for ~ 5 years, haven't heard anything about an increase in burglaries? Mapjack was/is a similar thing for Phuket/Chiang Mai, been around for ages, haven't heard of this leading to an increase in burglaries.

I still don't understand how people make the jump from Streetview to burglaries? It seems like the most nonsensical connection to make? Why does having a still picture of a house located on a map help a burglar? Are they unable to drive down a street and look at houses? Most burglaries are committed by teenage males who live nearby, while the second most burglaries are committed by professionals who observe neighborhoods and houses in person prior to the act, and usually ring the door-bell to see if anyone is home.

Streetview is way cool IMO, a boon for businesses, tourists and basically everyone. Thank goodness it is being rolled out here in Thailand.

http://blogs.wsj.com...ts-in-thailand/

March 23, 2012, 5:06 PM SGT

Google’s Street View Debuts in Thailand

By Newley Purnell

Google Inc. today officially unveiled its new Street View service for Thailand, releasing online a vast collection of panoramic street-level images of the country.

That means that anyone with a Web connection can now view high resolution photos of everything from Bangkok street food stalls to the ornate spires of the city’s Grand Palace. There are also images of the northern city of Chiang Mai and the southern beach resort of Phuket.

Thailand has become the 35th nation to get its own Street View service, and it is just the second country in Southeast Asia after Singapore. Google has been working to map the three Thai locations since September 2011.

[harrry]

The only issue I have with streetview is the height of the cameras. They are higher than the normal viewpoint of people walking or driving down the street and hence can see over wall and hedges to show things which would normally be considered private. I have no problem with people being embarressed by being shown drunk and passed out in public, and if the clothes worn are skimpier than the girls want photographed they should not wear them in public however over fences is too much.

[dave111223]

Love streetview. Had to go the British embassy the other day, and was able to plan out which parking garage entrance i was going to use in advance.