14 DAY TRIAL // Google is no stranger to controversy lately, with the pending DOJ investigation of the Google Books deal but also with the endless string of officials and regular people taking issue with Street View, the company's effort to provide photographs offering a 3D perspective of major cities in a number of countries around the world. With the latter just launched in Switzerland, Hanspeter Thuer, the country's federal data protection commissioner, is asking the search giant to remove the feature from Google Maps, claiming it fails to sufficiently protect the citizens' privacy.
Google Street View was launched in Switzerland barely a week ago and, despite the company claiming it has provided the authorities with ample documentation and information before the release, the official is now asking for the removal of all Street View data of the country as he claims that Google's face and number plate blurring technology is failing to do a good enough job in protecting people's right to privacy.
"Numerous reports from the public and our own research show that Google Street View does not respect the conditions that were laid down... Many faces and car numbers have not been blurred, or only insufficiently so," Thuer said, according to Swiss Info.
Google says it was “surprised” by the request, defending, once again, its automated tools for anonymizing the photos and claiming that only a small number of problems have popped up and even those have been taken care of in a manner of hours. Still, it was more than happy to meet with the officials to provide them with any clarification that they might require. Data protection officials from Switzerland met with Google representatives on Monday to reach common grounds and see how the service could be made to comply with local laws.
Since it has been launched internationally, Street View has encountered resistance in some parts of the world that may have stricter laws or more private citizens than in the US. Greece has outright banned Google from taking any photos while in Japan the company has to re-shoot 12 cities with the cameras positioned lower so they don't “see” over people's fences. Google has also had to make some adjustments to the way the service works in Germany.