Streetcar named Google: Channel 4 News spots Street View car in London
Updated on 14 July 2008
Channel 4 News spots a car in north London carrying a Google logo. Is this part of the internet giant's Street View project?
Channel 4 News has photographed what is believed to be the first evidence Google's controversial new Street View service in the UK.
Street View currently provides 360 degree panoramic street-level views of major cities in the USA, allowing users to gain a real sense of a location that is not offered through conventional satellite and aerial photography.
Our photographer stumbled across a Google StreetView car capturing footage in a north London suburb (at this point). The side of the car, which cannot be seen from the image, said "Google Maps".;)
In the USA, privacy activists have objected to the service claiming that often shows people inside properties, together with unsuspecting members of the public in places they would rather not be seen - sex shops and other unsalubrious venues, in the company of people in various states of undress.
Google removed images captured while a car drove down a private road in Pittsburgh after a couple sued the company, claiming that it invaded their privacy.
However, Google has consistently relied on freedom of speech laws in order to justify the service in the USA.
However, a similar service in the European Union and in the UK has presented new challenges for Google.
While they wouldn't comment on a UK launch, they did confirm to Channel 4 News that they will be blanking out people's faces and blurring number plates. They claim that by doing so they would be compliant with both the data protection act and the European directives on data and privacy.
In a blog post on the subject last year, Google's head of privacy, Peter Fleischer, discussed the possible technical ways to implement this.
"Lowering the quality of resolution of images is another approach to try not to capture identifiable faces or license plates," he writes.
"If the resolution is not great, it's hard (or even impossible) to identify them. Unfortunately, any such reduction in resolution would of course also reduce the resolution of the things we do want to show, such as buildings. So, it's a difficult trade-off."
Google characteristically refused to confirm the existence of the car in London and wouldn't comment on the product's impending launch.
Your photos?
Have you seen the Google Maps car? Send us your images to news@channel4.com
Your photos
We've already seen more photos of the Google Maps car in the UK.
"TOMHTML" posts this image of the car on his flickr page:
Credit: photographed by TOMHTML
This next photo was taken by Ray Brooks at the Corner of Ashely Road and Cheltenham Road, in the West Country
Credit: photographed by Ray Brooks
