Caught

The New York Times reported today that Google is being threatened with sanctions in Germany over its Street View feature, which allows users to “stroll” along streets in areas that are covered by the service, taking in the buildings, scenery, vehicles, pedestrians, etc., in a 360-degree view.  The “data protection regulator” for the city-state of Hamburg (where Google has its German headquarters) said Google and the German officials were at odds on a dozen points. The Times reports that “German privacy law forbids dissemination of photos of people or their property without their consent.” The “most significant disputes” involve Google’s “unauthorized filming of houses and private property and the company’s handling of the photographic data it records but which is later removed from Street View following complaints by property owners.”

It just so happens you can see me in Street View, captured in the act of gardening, even though I am not a gardener. There I am in the red T-shirt, down in a monkey crouch with a spade in my hand. That lady over there is my wife (she’s the gardener), and that’s our neighbor, chatting while he watches us work the soil of the tree lawn in front of our house. I actually remember the day quite well, though I never noticed any car with a strange bit of apparatus on it rolling slowly past.

After the initial glissando of a weird feeling that ran up my spine when I saw it, I felt strangely at ease about my Street View presence. When I showed the printouts to my brother the lawyer, he was spooked, for some reason. (Maybe that’s why he lives in the exurbs.) Am I nuts? I mean, anyone walking or driving by at that moment would have seen us, and frankly, you can’t make out our faces. (Google says it pixelates car license plates and faces, but it seems the resolution of the shots we’re in didn’t require it. I know it’s us because I know us pretty well.) But still … am I crazy not to care?

I confess I like Street View. Just the other day I wandered along the street in Cleveland where I was conceived and gestated (my parents and brother moved into a new house the day I was born, so I had never laid eyes on that neighborhood). Didn’t see any people, though. In my virtual wanderings in DC and elsewhere, I like seeing the traffic and people going about their business. I don’t recognize anyone, and certainly no one recognizes me. Is it voyeuristic or creepy to go Street Viewing in Paris or Chicago, or is it simply the cheapest, most ecological way to satisfy a mild case of wanderlust?

Perhaps more importantly, does this give the lie to my previously stated concerns about government encroachments on privacy? I think not, but the devoted reader is free to think otherwise.

Addendum 2009.05.21: A friend alerted me to this page describing the Google Trike that is photographing scenic footpaths in the UK. A bicyclist like me, he says this would be a neat job after retirement, and I agree.

Addendum 2009.05.22: Here’s a nice article in the New York Times about the Google camera car and the buzz surrounding it.