Street View Gets Google in Trouble Again

Google is facing issues with its Street View service yet again. It seems that every time the service opens up in another country the same discussion pops up with officials worried about privacy. It happened in Germany, it happened in Greece, in Japan and the UK, and so on. Now, Switzerland is saying its piece, with the same arguments we've heard before and to which Google has responded several times.

Of course, civil servants have to look like they're earning their salaries somehow and what better way than to take on a high-profile company like Google, especially since Street View is such an easy target. That is not to say that the concerns aren't valid, but it's strange that Google has to defend itself yet again over the same issues.

As The New York Times reported, officials in Switzerland, a country with a deep-rooted tradition for privacy, have threatened to take Google to court over some issues that haven't been addressed by the company, despite being brought to its attention since August. The officials note that the service's photo and number plate blurring technology isn't accurate enough and it still misses too many times.

“Numerous faces and vehicle number plates are not made sufficiently unrecognizable from the point of view of data protection, especially where the persons concerned are shown in sensitive locations, e.g. outside hospitals, prisons or schools,” Hanspeter Thuer, the country's data protection commissioner, said.

“The height from which the camera on top of the Google vehicle films is also problematic,” he added. “It provides a view over fences, hedges and walls, with the result that people see more on Street View than can been seen by a normal passer-by in the street.”

The same height issues were raised by officials in Japan and Google has had to reshoot several large cities with the camera mounted at a lower level. In fact, the company has mostly complied with the different requests in the countries where it encountered problems. In Switzerland, though, the officials say that Google has refused to meet their demands and will ask the court to force the company to stop all operations in the country and remove all of the photos already available. Google has responded that it will defend itself in court and doesn't agree with the issues raised.