Street View UK hit with image complaints

by Stevie Smith - Mar 20 2009, 17:15

Mirroring initial user reaction in the United States, Google’s ambitious Street View mapping service has already found itself bathed in something of a negative spotlight after only a few days of operation in the United Kingdom.

Having officially launched in the UK earlier this week, the interactive 3D mapping provided by Street View has been hit by a number of complaints regarding the wide-ranging imagery that Google’s specially equipped roving camera cars have captured across the British Isles.

As a result, Google has withdrawn a selection of contentious images that included photos of someone entering a sex shop in London, various people being arrested by the police, a van driver making an obscene gesture, and even a person vomiting onto the pavement.

“We want this to be a useful tool and it’s people’s right to have their image removed,” said Google’s Laura Scott while speaking with the BBC. “The fact that there are now gaps [in Street View’s coverage] shows how responsive we are.”

Although Google maintains its willingness to remove distasteful moments or images containing individuals who don’t wish to be depicted, the BBC notes that, although specific photos are being dropped, many frozen moments can still be viewed if users move along the virtual street and adjust the camera to a different angle.

Often criticised for invasion of privacy despite using an algorithm to blur “99.9 percent” of faces and license plates, the service enables users to travel down photographic representations of city streets while viewing surrounding landmarks and captured moments of time in a 360-degree format.

Street View was unveiled in the UK and the Netherlands on Thursday. It was originally introduced as an innovative mapping tool throughout the United States in May of 2007 and has gone on to establish itself in Australia, France, Italy, Japan, New Zealand and Spain.

Presently casting its eye over 25 major UK cities including Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds, London, Manchester and Oxford, Street View is likely to suffer yet more criticism and dropped content seeing as it has already collected tens of millions of photos from more than 22,000 miles of roads.

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