Google Street View Criticized in Botswana over "National Security"

Street View does a great job at getting Google in trouble even without it making things worse by grabbing WiFi payload data from public networks.

Time and time again, governments get all riled up about Street View invading on people's privacy or, on rarer occasions, the cars snapping photos of military installations and so on.

This seems to be the case in Botswana, where Google is criticized for including locations like military bases, the president's official residence and so on.

These locations are labeled as being sensitive and having photos of them online is a threat to national security.

It must be noted that, in this case, the criticism comes from the political opposition in the country not the government.

In fact, officials have said they're very pleased with how Google has handled issues with Street View so far. Still, it highlights just why the service is such an easy target.

Of course, the arguments against Street View are almost always easily debunked. In this case, the complaints are about locations accessible to the public, place where anyone with a camera phone can go or drive by and snap photos.

Just because those photos are not on Facebook but on Street View doesn't make them more dangerous.