Canada’s privacy commissioner has been raising concerns over Google’s new Street View application…
“The privacy commissioner in Canada says Google Maps’ new high-resolution images in its “Street View” feature could violate Canada’s privacy laws because citizens may not know they have been photographed, according to The Canadian Press.”
Ottawa — The Street View feature of Google Maps, that lets users view and zoom with its close-up views of city streets and recognizable shots of people that are so clear and precise, could violate a Canadian law protecting individual privacy, officials said on Wednesday.
Canada’s Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart has raised concerns over a new Google program, in early August wrote to Google, and Calgary-based Immersive Media, Google’s technology partner on the imagery, and asked the companies to respond to her concerns.
Stoddart told Immersive she was aware that the company already has a database of images of people in Canada.
“She said if the Street View product were expanded to Canada without being amended; it could well violate privacy laws.”
Google Inc introduced street-level map views in May, giving web users a series of panoramic, 360-degree images of nine U.S. cities.
Google’s new Street View application uses photographs captured at an earlier date to let computer users navigate through city streets and neighborhoods in major cities quickly and easily.
“Some of the random pictures feature people in informal poses who can clearly be identified.”
But some of the pictures available on the Street View application — which so far only shows images of U.S. cities — showcase the embarrassing to the mundane. “From a man waiting for the bus to a person coming out of a pornography shop, all of the images can be quickly and easily accessed just by going online. Numerous Web sites have already popped up to allow users to post funny or embarrassing photographs of people and places spotted using the Street View application.
But the program, which relies on pictures taken without the knowledge or consent of people in them, seems to violate many basic rights of citizens and poses a serious threat to personal privacy, according to Stoddart.
Although Street View not yet available in Canada, but has been rolled out to nine major cities in the U.S. since May. The maps show close-up, high-resolution images in San Diego and the San Francisco Bay Area only.
After initial criticism about privacy concerns, Google quietly changed its policy to allow anyone to notify the company when a recognizable face or license plate number has been captured, not just the person photographed.
The high-resolution pictures could violate Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, which went into effect on January 1, 2004, said Stoddart.
“Canadian law obliges businesses wishing to disclose personal information about individuals to first obtain their consent.”
Stoddart said Street View “does not appear to meet the basic requirements of knowledge, consent, and limited collection and use as set out in the legislation,” she wrote. “Our Office considers images of individuals that are sufficiently clear to allow an individual to be identified to be personal information within the meaning of PIPEDA.”
In a letter to David Drummond, the search engine’s senior vice-president of corporate development and chief legal officer, Stoddart expressed her reservations.
Allowing people to request removal of images is only a partial solution because the damage has already been done to their privacy, since individuals may not be aware that images relating to them are on the application, she said.
Stoddart sent a similar letter to Immersive Media and the documents were posted on her website, http://www.privcom.gc.ca/. No one from either company was immediately available for comment.
“Many of the images are of sufficient resolution and close enough to allow individuals to be identified, to discern what activities they are engaged in and to situate their geographic whereabouts,” Stoddart wrote in a letter to Immersive Media CEO Myles McGovern.
Although the program only focuses on the United States at this point, Google is eager to expand the service. “We are focused on making this service available in as many cities as possible,” Google spokeswoman Wendy Rozeluk wrote an in e-mail. “We will be adding Street View imagery for new cities on an ongoing basis.”
“Google said it places a high priority on privacy and is not doing anything wrong.”
“At Google we take privacy very seriously and comply with the local laws of the countries in which we operate.”
Street View only features imagery taken on public property. “This imagery is several months old and is no different from what any person can readily capture or see walking down the street. Imagery of this kind is available in a wide variety of formats for cities all around the world,” Ms. Rozeluk said.
“While the Street View feature enables people to easily find, discover, and plan activities relevant to a location, we respect the fact that people may not want imagery they feel is objectionable featured on the service. We provide easily accessible tools for flagging inappropriate or sensitive imagery for review and removal.”
Stoddart did not give either firm a deadline. If Google launched Street View in Canada without taking privacy laws into account, Stoddart could launch an official investigation, said her spokesman Colin McKay.
“We thought we would get out in advance of any implementation and ask them how they were going to take into account Canadian privacy rights,” he said.
There are many ways of taking photographs of a street without taking pictures of everyone there — film companies do it all the time by blocking off streets, said McKay.
“From our point of view, if you spot yourself and you perceive that as a violation of your privacy rights, then the act has already been violated,” said McKay.