Mountain View, California — From the day it was first launched in the United States, Google Street View has been the subject of countless criticism and complaints, with many countries and their citizens claiming it harms their right to privacy. Switzerland is the latest country to fall foul of this disease. The Swiss data commissioner is apprehensive that Google Maps Street View reveals too much and may force Google to blur or remove even more of its images.
Google first introduced Street View in May 2007, with the United States being the first country to cheer the street-level photo goodness. But Alas, the cheerfulness did not lasted for long. A couple sued Google over Street View and duly lost the case. Then a whole town objected to the service, asking to be removed from the app as one.
Then Street View moved onto Western Europe, and that caused further problems. A privacy rights group claimed Google was breaking U.K. privacy laws but that was found to be a false accusation. However, The Swiss gave Street View a chance. But, following its acceptance of demands from U.S. tax authorities that Swiss banks provide less privacy to customers, the country’s data protection agency has rejected Google Street View for failing to protect the privacy of Swiss citizens.
Hans-Peter Thur, Switzerland’s federal data protection and information commissioner (FDPIC), blamed Google of not doing enough to blur faces and license plates, and issued a statement on Friday demanding Google to immediately remove the Street View feature in Google maps.
Street View became available in Switzerland less than a week ago.
In May of 2008, Google added face-blurring application to Street View in an attempt to satisfy privacy groups. The software does its best to make license plates illegible, too. The problem is that it is not as accurate as it should be, and Commissioner Thur stumbled upon some omissions on both fronts.
Well, that does not necessarily counts as an end of the line for Street View in Switzerland. In fact, images of Switzerland are still available for everyone to see right now.
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The Swiss decision recalls Greece’s denial in May to allow Google to collect Street View imagery until stronger privacy safeguards had been put in place.
Although Google has repeatedly had to defend itself against charges that its services intrude on personal privacy, the company said that it had not expected to be asked to suspend the service.
“We were surprised by the FDPIC’s announcement,” said a Google spokesperson via e-mail. “We have been engaged in constructive dialogue with the organization ahead of [last] week’s launch to demonstrate how we protect people’s privacy on Street View. And we are ready to do so again or to answer any additional questions.”
Google representatives met with data protection officials on Monday to discuss how the service can be made compliant with Swiss law.
“We have had a good exchange of views and we look forward to any further discussions to demonstrate our industry leading tools to protect users’ privacy,” a Google spokesperson explained. “Since launching last week we have seen an 80% increase in maps usage, proving how popular this tool is with Swiss people.”
Thür is calling on Google to immediately remove Switzerland from Street View entirely until it can ensure it complies with privacy laws in the country. Surely the most engrossing piece of this governmental request is that it seems to correspond with the Swiss daily NZZ spotting a member of Parliament, Ruedi Noser, walking down the street in the company of a lady who was not his wife, but was, praise be, his assistant.
Well, Google cannot be thrilled that Street View has hit another snag, though. International complaints seem to be adding up, with stories tied to Germany, Greece, and Japan all making headlines just within the past few months.