Peekeboo

090319beauGoogle is at the moment making pictures of all the citys in the Netherlands for their streetview service. Besides this being a usefull service (what does that area look like) it leads to some bizarre situations:

  • In some cases Google has by accident photographed famous dutch people. Even though the faces are blurred in most cases the people are still clearly recognisable. This may of course be a problem since it makes the place where someone lives visible for everyone.
  • In one case a crime is even solved. Some time ago a person was mugged in the street, just a the moment the Google streetview care was driving by taking pictures. The criminals got away. After some months the person looked at the streetview pictures of that location and to his surprise he could see himself and the boys that mugged him running away. He called the police, they called Google for the un-blurred pictures and got them. The criminals are apprehended.

Streetview now even has it’s own site where remarkable pictures can be found. Two people walking hand in hand on four separate pictures and others, famous people, people driving through red and others. The sheer amount of pictures that are being taking leads to all kinds of new questions how we should deal with it in relation to privacy.
How do you feel about this trend, do you see it as an invasion of your privacy?