Germany and Google Still at Odds over Street View

Last month Google's Street View once again came under scrutiny, this time in Germany. While at the time it looked like the two parties, the search giant and the German data protection officials, were on their way to an agreement, it seems like their dispute hasn't been resolved yet, because they haven't been able to reach a compromise on how long certain data should be stored by the Mountain View company for its Street View service.

Google Street View offers photos from every street corner in cities around the world, which has had some people worried about public privacy. This prompted German data protection officials to question the search giant's practices and asked it to change certain features and procedures. The most debated issue was for how long Google should be allowed to keep raw images it acquired from its mobile outposts. These images are processed and faces and license plates are blurred to protect citizens' privacy.

The Internet company had a video conference on Wednesday with the German officials from Hamburg discussing this latest issue, with the latter wanting to know why and for how long Google needed to store the raw photos.

Johannes Caspar, head of the data protection agency in the Hamburg region, the man who first threatened Google last month with “unspecified sanctions” if it did not comply with their demands, said that while the company had been cooperative in certain aspects the issue of the raw photos remained unclear.

The search giant stated that it did permanently delete the raw photos but only after it was done processing them and using them to enhance its blurring technology. "The request to introduce a fixed period during which the data is retained has implications for the industry as a whole and will therefore require broader discussion," the statement said.

Google Street View isn't yet available in Germany but the company has been collecting photos for the service. The data protection agency is still debating how and if the German law applies to Street View and will provide an answer as soon as next week.