Wednesday, 26 September 2007

Street View Will Comply With Privacy Laws: Google

After Canadian officials raised the concern of Google’s StreetView being sensitive, Google has promised that its StreetView application will respect the local laws of Canada....

Google wanted to launch its StreetView applications in Canada that could display streetwise location of Canada. However this has raised privacy concerns because of the street-level views of locations it provides.

Google’s global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer said in his blog that the world’s top search engine would respect local Canadian laws.

Canadian Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart, in a recent letter to Google, said Street View might violate country's privacy law, which prohibits the commercial use of personal data without permission from the individual.

Currently Street View is available only in the US, providing users with a close look at US city streets that could include identifiable images of people.

In his blog, Fleischer said when Google designed the service, it wanted to make sure it respected the privacy of individuals who might be walking on a public street at the moment Google captured an image. To do that, Google instituted a process that allowed people to contact the company if they wanted to have their images removed, he said.