San Francisco — Search engine giant Google’s “Street View” has once again been enveloped by controversy as German officials threaten with sanctions over how the company holds certain data used for its Street View map imagery and demands by German privacy watchdogs over its partially blurred images be completely removed from Google’s mapping service, which offers photographs of buildings in cities taken from street level.
According to Johannes Caspar, the head of the Hamburg regional office for data protection for Germany, last week stated that although Google Inc. made a 13-page response to other requests, the U.S. company has yet to comply to a key request that images gathered for its panoramic mapping service be erased after the faces, license plates and other visible information are scrambled or otherwise rendered unrecognizable before they are sent to the United States for processing.
Caspar warned the Mountain View-based company with “unspecified sanctions” if Google did not resolve the 12 issues that he had raised concerning Germany’s privacy laws, which generally restrict photographs of people and property except in very public situations, such as a sporting event, without a person’s consent.
Caspar also raised concerns over Street View only partially blurring people’s faces, allowing them to still be identifiable.
“We consider this to be highly problematic,” Caspar said in a telephone interview.
Google Germany spokesman Stefan Keuchel said the company, based in Mountain View, Calif., would continue to work toward an understanding with data authorities.
“We are looking forward to further discussions and to explaining the technical requirements that we need or how street view works and what we are doing with the data,” Keuchel said.
Hamburg as well 15 other German states demands Google to permanently remove that information from its databases in order to comply with the law, Caspar said. Google, however, says it needs to retain that data in order to make its automated blurring technology more accurate, Caspar said.
The search giant complied with most of the aforementioned problems, although it did not offer any assurances that the raw images would be removed after scrambling faces, license plates and other information had been processed.
The officials were satisfied with the response, praising Google for its promptness; however, they are still reserved, but their main concern over Google’s retaining the raw images, although the company has pledged to continue to collaborate with the authorities towards reaching an agreement.
“After positive deliberations with the German Data Protection Authorities we have made good progress towards finding solutions to their concerns about Street View,” Google said in a statement.
Google’s Street View mapping service delivers detailed street-level images of many cities and important landmarks and is integrated into the company’s Google Maps mapping service, and provides almost unparalleled detail and breadth of images by using vehicles equipped with periscope-like cameras to collect the imagery with 360-degree panoramic images of homes and businesses and places.
Ever since it was introduced, it has expanded to more than 100 cities worldwide but has faced controversies and oppositions from privacy advocates, individuals and institutions in many countries that have been photographed.
Privacy concerns over Street View erupted earlier this month in both Greece and Japan.
“As with many cutting-edge technologies, the challenge we face with Street View is striking the right balance between building a sophisticated and highly useful tool while ensuring that the data we collect to provide these services is used appropriately,” the company said in a blog post.
Greece’s Data Protection Authority recently rejected Google’s bid to roam Greek streets with cameras mounted on vehicles, while the Pentagon barred Google from photographing U.S. military bases for the service. Residents of a small English village formed a human chain last month to stop one of Google’s camera vans.
Furthermore, residents in Japan expressed their disappointment that the service provided a view over the fences around their homes, prompting Google to agree to reshoot all photos in the country.
Google has assured that it would blur faces and vehicle license plates when displaying the images online and that it would promptly respond to removal requests.
The latest objections from Germany revolve around what happens to the original images. Germany fears use of the raw information could abused.
The German Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information in Bonn, said that Germany could levy Google, fines up to nearly $136,000 apart from citizens also suing Google in German court if the company does not adhere to the country’s privacy laws.
Caspar stated he anticipated his office would meet with Google to discuss the matter before deciding on any further action. Caspar said technology experts from his agency are investigating to see if Google’s claims are accurate and will contact the company next week.
Google has stressed Street View has a reporting system that allows people to request an image of them be removed along with their homes. Google’s policy is to remove such images as quickly as possible.
Google said it is working with German data protection officials to find a resolution to the issues.