Google Street View under the Scanner of EU Privacy Regulators
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Street View is a service where web users are able to have a 360-degree view of images of city streets, edifices and people that are stored in files for one year. These photographs are taken by Google’s camera cars.
The EU authorities on data protection are suggesting changes because of privacy concerns. The authorities would like to cut the storage period of the unblurred copies by half, i.e., it wants Google to keep them on file only for six months. According to the data protection authorities, storing such images for a year puts the right of privacy of the people at stake.
Peter Fleischer, the global counsel for Google has already received a letter from the authorities stating this, saying that then there will be a balance between the protection of privacy and the ability to discard false positives. Google has been accused earlier of not behaving in a responsible manner with regard to censoring the images so as to ensure that it is not possible for users to see into private properties.
The European Justice Commissioner has also stated her concerns on this issue. Viviane Reding has warned that she will keenly monitor the data protection issues and also that she expects all companies to ensure high standards of data protection.
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