Tommy Collison

Recently, internet giant Google decided to take GMaps to the next level and roll out Google StreetView. While GMaps was heralded as being ‘the next big thing’, Google StreetView (GSV) has stirred up some controversy.

Basically – people have been saying that they’re uncomfortable with every street being photographed. What if X went into an adult shop/other embarrassing place, then their image would be on GSV forever and for the whole world to see!

The Luddites of this world – those who don’t like the advances of technology because they fear for a big robot invasion – feel that GSV is a bad idea. “What about our privacy?” they say.

Hand me the can opener for the worms, there.

I’m not entirely sure where I stand on this, so as I write this, I’m unsure of the conclusion I’m going to draw. Let’s just go through and state some simple facts about GSV:

Firstly, all pictures taken by the GSV team are taken from the public roads. i.e they haven’t stepped onto private property to take these, so all that appears in the photos can be seen from anyone driving along. I guess what people are against is the permanency, yet millions of tourists visit Ireland annually, and I’m sure people’s houses get caught in some of the pictures they take, so it’s probably not that. I suppose with Google as big as it is, it could be the simple fact that lots of people will be using this and will see X in his compromising situation.

Getting back to X and his adult store/other-embarressing-place, there isn’t a huge issue here, as Google, being the gentlemen they are (take this as a joke if you wish, I’m easy :P) have agreed to blur out faces, car licence plates, and other embarrassing little whatnots. Not good enough? Of course, with technology as good as it is, it’s now possible to completely remove you from the image. That still not good enough for you? Forgive me, but I’m going to bring in a James Bond solution to this story:

In 1981′s For Your Eyes Only, James Bond wishes to identify an assassin he saw at the baddies’ place. Deep in the bowels of Q’s workshop, there’s an “identigraph”, which is exactly what it says on the tin. It allows you to describe the person in question, with face size, descriptions, etc. and then eventually it runs it against police files to give you a match.

That was 1981. Technology has come a long long way. What we can do now is remove X from the street outside the adult store/other-embarrassing-place and replace him with a completely random person that’s no-one from their picture-taking. It’s someone who Google just created for the purpose of saving X’s dignity.

I was chatting with someone on MSN about this, and we agreed that you do sacrifice some privacy by simply going outside your house. By being in public, you do relinquish the right not to be photographed. With our millions of tourists, you can’t exactly tell or force them not to not to take pictures.

So, we’ve reached the end. In my opinion, this should go ahead, because they’re going to remove anything compromising, and if you do that, where’s the issue?

EDIT ~ 18:58: I’ve been through GSV pretty thoroughly, but what I neglected to mention was the innumerable benefits. Say if you were booking a hotel, sure you can read what it’s like, but if you’ve never been to Shanghai before, how do you know what the area’s like? Is it rough? Are there plenty of facilities around? How far is it actually to the metro?

You can only really acurately answer these questions by driving down the street. Since you can’t do that until you arrive, GSV is a very handy tool for finding these things out.

It’s almost like a public service!

Update ~ 19:56: I showed Patrick this point and he had some points:

* There’s a difference between a tourist taking a photo and GSV making a 3D map of your area.

True – I mean, if I punch someone on the street, and a tourist snaps a picture with that happening in the background, it’s hardly important. Whereas if GSV get it, it’ll be seen by so many more people. This’d be an issue if Google didn’t blur out your face and any other distinguishing marks.

* So, we now have a service that we can search location. What’d happen if we made a service that searches people?

There’d be uproar. People just would not stand for it. It’d be about as successful as new coke