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Google-branded Holden Astra cars with roof-mounted cameras began traversing our streets about November last year, taking tens of millions of detailed panoramic street-level photos. Most Australian coastal cities and many regional and outback towns are covered but there are some notable omissions, such as Uluru. Google Maps product manager Andrew Foster said more images would be added to Street View in the coming months as they are processed by Google.

Street View was launched in the US in May last year and has since expanded to parts of France and Italy. Google's camera-equipped cars have also been spotted in New Zealand, Britain, Germany, Spain, Ireland, the Czech Republic, Japan, Switzerland and Norway. "Our ambition is to be a world map," said Lars Rasmussen, Google Australia's engineer and one of the original creators of Google Maps.

Google expects tourists, home seekers, students and armchair explorers to embrace Street View in their research. The feature has already been praised by Tourism Australia, the Real Estate Institute of Australia and the Australian Geography Teachers Association. Many of the original photographs that were part of the US Street View launch were taken down following privacy concerns. They include a woman in a G-string, a man striding into an adult bookshop and a man relieving himself on a pavement. Since then, Google has developed technology to blur faces and number plates in the Street View photos, although it acknowledges the automated process is not foolproof. Privacy conscious users who notice any potentially invasive images on Street View can report them to Google using an online form.

A US couple is suing Google for invasion of privacy because photos of their home, located on a private road, appeared on Street View. In court documents filed in its defence, Google claimed that "even in today's desert, complete privacy does not exist". Google Australia spokesman Rob Shilkin said the quote had been taken out of context and no Australian private roads would be visible on Street View.

To assuage local privacy concerns, Google demonstrated Street View for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, the Australian Privacy Foundation and various welfare groups for homeless people. The privacy commissioner, Karen Curtis, said she would continue to monitor Street View but those with concerns could first contact Google and then her office directly. Dan Svantesson, co-chairman of the privacy foundation's internet subcommittee and a law professor at Bond University, applauded Google for developing the blurring technology but said its effectiveness would only be apparent after Street View went live today.

He said he was concerned that the link to the form for users to report privacy concerns with individual images wasn't visible enough. And even with the blurring technology, cars and people - particularly those in small towns or neighbourhoods - could still be identified from other features. At a technology industry lunch in May, Google evangelist and internet pioneer Vint Cerf said that "nothing you do ever goes away and nothing you do ever escapes notice ... there isn't any privacy, get over it", the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported.

The US National Legal and Policy centre responded by releasing a dossier of information about an unnamed Google executive - later revealed to be co-founder Larry Page - including their address and route to work, using information compiled only from Street View images in 30 minutes. "Perhaps in Google's world, privacy does not exist, but in the real world individual privacy is fundamentally important and is being chipped away bit by bit every day by companies like Google," NLPC chairman Ken Boehm said.