Google Hits The Streets for A Better View. If you missed your chance to be immortalised by Google the last time around, be sure to spruce yourself up when you are on the streets this summer. The search giant is hitting the road again to capture images of Australia's capital cities at ground level as part of an update to its Street View service.
Since it was launched in Australia in August last year, Google Maps Street View has gone from being an invasive privacy concern to a voyeuristic gawking tool to a valuable navigation service used by thousands of Australians every day. In a posting on Google's blog, product manager Andrew Foster said the company was sending its Street View fleet of Holden Astras back on the road to ensure its panoramic imagery was up to date and reflective of what you would see if you visited an area in person.
Since it was launched in Australia in August last year, Google Maps Street View has gone from being an invasive privacy concern to a voyeuristic gawking tool to a valuable navigation service used by thousands of Australians every day. In a posting on Google's blog, product manager Andrew Foster said the company was sending its Street View fleet of Holden Astras back on the road to ensure its panoramic imagery was up to date and reflective of what you would see if you visited an area in person.
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Google Street View images showing the man in the Port Melbourne dunny (top left) and several examples from around the world of private activities being captured for public view.
"Starting from [this month] in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra, Adelaide, Perth and parts of Tasmania, we'll be doing our best to cover as many of Australia's public roads as we can during this summer," he wrote. Foster said the new images would be "crisper than before" and the face- and number plate-blurring technology would be more accurate. He said the new images would be added to Google Maps "sometime within the next year".
Street View, now available in more than 100 cities worldwide, was launched in Canada last month. Foster pointed to these images - specifically the stonework on the Basilique Notre-Dame - as an example of the quality we can expect from the new Australian images.
A Google Australia spokeswoman would not give an approximate timetable for when the cars would be traversing each Australian capital city. But she said the cars would be driving around at least part-time until March next year. However, people are now more familiar with the Google cars and their difficult to conceal roof-mounted tripods. Many Canadians were photographed making rude gestures at the cameras.
Google has been able to placate some privacy campaigners by blurring number plates and faces of people caught in its lenses and promising only to photograph from public streets. People who are caught in compromising positions - such as a Port Melbourne man snapped sitting on his outhouse dunny - have been able to apply to the company to have images removed from Street View.
But that didn't stop a US couple from suing it for invasion of privacy after a picture of their house appeared on Street View. The house of Aaron and Christine Boring was allegedly snapped without permission on a private road but in February a judge ruled in Google's favour, arguing there was no proof the couple were harmed by the Street View images.
In May, Greece banned Google from taking images of its streets until the company was able to satisfy Greece's Data Protection Authority that citizens' privacy would not be breached. That month, the company said it would reshoot all photos in Japan after residents complained the 360-degree panoramic images provided a view over the fences around their homes.
In June, Google was forced to agree to make people, their cars and their homes unidentifiable in the raw data held internally by the company after concerns were raised by German officials.
In Australia, Foster said internal images would be permanently blurred within one year of their publication on Street View.
And, in August, Switzerland's data protecting watchdog demanded that Google immediately withdraw Street View from the country, after he found that many faces and vehicle number plates had not been sufficiently blurred or covered up.
Some people have taken matters into their own hands, with residents of a small English village forming a human chain in April to stop one of Google's camera-equipped cars from passing through. /kompas.com
A Google Australia spokeswoman would not give an approximate timetable for when the cars would be traversing each Australian capital city. But she said the cars would be driving around at least part-time until March next year. However, people are now more familiar with the Google cars and their difficult to conceal roof-mounted tripods. Many Canadians were photographed making rude gestures at the cameras.
Google has been able to placate some privacy campaigners by blurring number plates and faces of people caught in its lenses and promising only to photograph from public streets. People who are caught in compromising positions - such as a Port Melbourne man snapped sitting on his outhouse dunny - have been able to apply to the company to have images removed from Street View.
But that didn't stop a US couple from suing it for invasion of privacy after a picture of their house appeared on Street View. The house of Aaron and Christine Boring was allegedly snapped without permission on a private road but in February a judge ruled in Google's favour, arguing there was no proof the couple were harmed by the Street View images.
In May, Greece banned Google from taking images of its streets until the company was able to satisfy Greece's Data Protection Authority that citizens' privacy would not be breached. That month, the company said it would reshoot all photos in Japan after residents complained the 360-degree panoramic images provided a view over the fences around their homes.
In June, Google was forced to agree to make people, their cars and their homes unidentifiable in the raw data held internally by the company after concerns were raised by German officials.
In Australia, Foster said internal images would be permanently blurred within one year of their publication on Street View.
And, in August, Switzerland's data protecting watchdog demanded that Google immediately withdraw Street View from the country, after he found that many faces and vehicle number plates had not been sufficiently blurred or covered up.
Some people have taken matters into their own hands, with residents of a small English village forming a human chain in April to stop one of Google's camera-equipped cars from passing through. /kompas.com
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