14 DAY TRIAL // Britons may have gotten more than they bargained for when Google recently let loose a huge batch of Street View imagery in the country. Between 95 to 99 percent of the country's roads are now available in Street View, depending on who you choose to believe. But along with pleasant villages and stately castles, it looks like top secret locations also ended up on Street View, not exactly to the delight of local authorities.
Google has removed some of them, perhaps all of them by now, but for a while, the Special Boat Service and Special Air Service bases, MI5 headquarters, an atomic weapons research centre and other classified sites were all available on Street View for the public (and maybe terrorists?) to see.
"One area updated significantly was the United Kingdom. World renowned for its history, rolling green hills and quaint picturesque villages, the UK (although not abundant with dramatic mountainous scenery one see may elsewhere), there are nonetheless many different sights to see," Phil Verney, Geo Data Specialist at Google wrote. Curiously, there's nothing in there about atomic weapons sites.
Now, fears of terrorist attacks based on Google Street View may be a bit of stretch even for a country which has seen its fair share of horrible attacks in recent years. Still, it's pretty obvious why the government would want to keep things private in some of these cases. All the locations were clearly labeled as 'no photography' areas, but in their zeal to get as much of Britain online as possible, the Street View drivers may have overlooked them.
Google hasn't confirmed that these locations were indeed available online, even for a brief period, but said that mistakes were possible; still, when they occur, the company is quick to act and fix them.
“Google Street View is only made up of images from public roads and so it's to be expected that buildings that anyone can see walking down the street may appear," a Google spokesman told the Telegraph. “Our drivers are trained not to take photographs where this is prohibited by law, but if mistakes are made we will act quickly to remove the images. We're unaware of any official concerns being raised about security, but are of course happy to discuss any issues as they arise.”