Google Street View is both a blessing and a curse. For those of us who get lost easily, being able to see an actual photograph of your destination before leaving the house can be immensely helpful. For others, the prospect of having everything photographed from the street—including possibly themselves—is very creepy. The European Union agrees with the latter folks, and feels strongly that Google Street View—as implemented now in the US—would be a violation of EU privacy laws. That's why the organization reminded Google this week to respect local privacy laws once Street View makes its jump across the pond.

"Taking pictures on a street isn't in itself a problem but taking pictures anywhere can be. We have sent a very strong message to Google and other Internet search companies in our report on search engines about complying with European privacy laws," EU data protection supervisor Peter Hustinx said during a press conference, according to IDG News Service. "Street View is only available in the US still, but I understand that it will work differently when it's launched in Canada, so there is a capacity to deploy the service in different ways to suit different privacy laws."

Hustinx's comment references statements made by Google last fall in response to Canadian Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart, who had voiced concern that Street View might violate Canadian privacy laws when it comes to the Great White North. At the time, Google responded by saying that it will do everything it can to respect local laws in other countries. "Street View isn't available outside of the US yet, but when it is, we'll be sure to respect local laws. We understand that means that we'll have to ensure that there aren't identifiable faces and license plates in some countries," wrote Global Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer. "There's an important public policy debate in every country around what privacy means in public spaces. That balance will vary from country to country, and Street View will respect it."

The main concern here is Google Street View's tendency to catch people walking around in public every so often, permanently documenting their presence in certain areas of town or near certain buildings. Some have felt that this is a massive, public intrusion on privacy if the individuals involved are identifiable—after all, few people want to be seen by the world walking out of the sex toy store on the other side of town. The same goes for license plates on cars along the street, which are displayed in full view.

Google has long maintained that it follows the same rules in the US for "public spaces" that allow journalists to publish photos of people in public, but it is sympathetic to the plight of those who would not like to be identified. The company previously offered a way for individuals to request that their faces or license plates be blurred, which Google said usually meets the requirements for privacy.



Don't worry, Mr. Ed, no one can identify you now

Requiring individuals to file requests for each incident was not enough to satisfy privacy advocates, though, prompting the company to finally implement an automated solution this week. The system has begun working on images of New York, according to Google, but will slowly expand out to the other 40 cities in Street View. The only problem with that, as Fleischer pointed out on his personal blog in October, is that such technology is imperfect. "Firstly, face recognition misses a lot of faces in practice, and secondly, a surprising number of natural features (bits of buildings, branches, signs, chance coincidence of all of the above) look like faces." Perhaps this is part of the explanation behind a widely-linked image this week of a horse in New York whose face has been blurred.

Despite the warning, the EU appears confident that Google will meet all privacy requirements to operate in Europe. "Success or failure for them in Europe will depend on them respecting the laws. They are smart, I'm confident they won't ignore the laws," Hustinx said.