New Zealand — Search engine giant Google Inc. on Monday unveiled its controversial “Street View” on Google Maps in New Zealand, making it the seventh country that the popular on-the-ground mapping service is available in. New Zealanders can now take a virtual view of their homes and streets from today, but faces of people have been blurred to protect their identity.
The free online program allows Internet users to take a virtual “walk” down city streets and lets users view and navigate 360 degree street-level imagery of local cities, towns, regions and remote areas from different angle on their computer screens.
The imagery was collected by a team of Googlers who traveled all over New Zealand to document every single public road in the country over the past year. The team drove Holden Astras, which had cameras mounted on a pole on the roof.
The complimentary online Street View software has triggered much hullabaloo in countries like Europe and North America, because pedestrians and vehicles can be clearly identified in some photos, while others show people in offensive or potentially embarrassing situations.
Google New Zealand product manager Andrew Foster said Google had consulted the Privacy Commission and offered to blur people’s faces — a similar concession made in other countries. Users could also ask for inappropriate images to be removed.
Google had earlier said it would ensure license plates were not identifiable but had decided against blurring them because most were not legible in Street View images, he said.
Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff has said she was pleased Google had taken steps to protect individual privacy.
To enter Street View, just go to maps.google.co.nz, and by dragging the yellow “pegman” in the top left corner onto any point on a public road shown in Google Maps, the application will bring up an image of the surroundings from a street-level vantage point, letting people check out a restaurant before arriving, arrange meeting points, look up open homes before going there, or just explore, says Google Australia and New Zealand PR manager, Annie Baxter.
Google’s Foster, says that over the last 12 months tens of millions of photographs have been taken around New Zealand. The coverage of New Zealand is far from complete, but is more comprehensive than the Australian version.
“New Zealand has some of the most scenic and remote roads in the world, and now anyone from around the country or the world will be able to appreciate them online,” he said.
“In addition to viewing images of major metropolitan areas like Auckland and Christchurch, people will be able to take a virtual drive along Scenic Drive to Piha Beach west of Auckland, or along the spectacular Crown Range road between Wanaka and Queenstown.”
“New Zealanders will find 101 practical uses for Street View too, from checking out a summer holiday home before booking it, to finding a shop for a Christmas shopping expedition, to conducting research for a school project,” he added.
New Zealanders not only use Google Maps for directions, says Foster. Many companies integrate the maps with their websites, and enthusiasts also use it to create personalized maps, such as a map of all the lighthouses in New Zealand, he says.
Google has also adopted a pro-active approach to safeguarding privacy, says Baxter. Street View only contains imagery that is already visible from public roads, and it is not real-time, she says. If faces are identifiable they will be blurred, she says. The “Report a concern” button at the bottom of the Street View image in question makes it easy for anyone to request the removal or blurring of images, she says.
“Street View is a new way of giving potential visitors the opportunity to get a sense of what New Zealand offers before they get here,” says George Hickton, chief executive of Tourism New Zealand. “We know that many of our visitors are great internet users and this virtual tour should make visitors step off the beaten track and explore even more of New Zealand’s remote and beautiful spots.”
Tourism New Zealand has selected a gallery of Street View images that showcase some of New Zealand’s best tourist attractions and locations to the world. Many other organizations have already identified significant opportunities for Street View to be used in travel, tourism, house buying and renting, education, and helping make small businesses easier to find.
Wellington privacy lawyer John Edwards said that, under New Zealand law, people did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy while in public, but Street View made it more difficult to keep their business to themselves.
“I do not know that there is any great objection. Google will still be liable if they do anything or show anything really offensive and people will still have a remedy.”
People would first need to be aware of sensitive images before asking they be removed — by which time it would often be too late, he said.
“Once something is brought to your attention because it is noteworthy, it is probably been picked up by somebody else and distributed around the Internet already.”
Foster said Street View’s coverage of New Zealand was extensive, including cities, towns, regions and remote areas. Hokitika and Greymouth would not feature initially as poor weather prevented Google’s camera-equipped cars from taking photos there.
A US couple tried unsuccessfully to sue Google for posting pictures of their home on Street View, claiming they were taken on a road marked “private property”. An Australian woman was horrified to see a photo of her parents outside their house one month after her father had died.
Street View can be accessed through Google Maps, as well as being available on iPhones and BlackBerry phones.
Annette Lanigan, chair of the New Zealand Board of Geography Teachers, says that many schools and universities already use Google Earth to help students explore the world. “Street View will allow Kiwi students to study the geography, vegetation and landscape of different parts of the country, from the beautiful beaches of Northland to the Southern Alps — areas of New Zealand that they might never see otherwise.”
More than 100 metropolitan areas in six other countries around the world are presently visible in street view, including Australia, the United States, France and Japan. New Zealand is the seventh country featured.