The EU on Google Street View
By Harry McCracken | Friday, February 26, 2010 at 10:29 am
The European Commission is telling Google that it needs to delete Google Street View imagery after six months to preserve the privacy of folks who may be seen in it. Google says its practice is to delete it after 12 months. I’m not sure if I completely understand the squabble, but this I know: The photo of my house in Google Street View is almost two years old. (It shows a “FOR SALE” sign that hasn’t been there since before I bought the place in June of 2008.)
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February 26th, 2010 at 10:43 am
Damn, I wanted that house. 😉
February 26th, 2010 at 11:24 am
A shift in our society has occurred the past few years. We have gone from initially fearing the security of the internet to anything/everything goes, your nobody unless everything about you is transparent. There is little digital hygiene that is of any concern with many of the nets younger users. This is all they have known, so it must be safe, secure, and non-problematic. I don’t know where this all nets out for privacy and society. Caution is still necessary, storage is unlimited and cheaper by the day, and everything is connected.
February 27th, 2010 at 10:28 am
The way I understood it was that there was an original, unblurred copy that would be deleted after 12 months, but the blurred copy would stay up till replaced. Therefore the picture of yours that was up for two years is fine, but if there were any blurred faces, the original, non-public, unblurred version would have been deleted 12 months after it was taken.
It isn’t very clear if that is the case, but that is how I interpreted it.