HIGHLY detailed street-level photographs of much of Australia will soon be published by Google, but the top executive in charge of the project is making no assurances that private residences, faces and numberplates will be obscured.

A US couple is suing the search engine for invasion of privacy after photographs of their home, on a street clearly marked with a private road sign, appeared on the Street View feature of Google Maps.

Since the case came to light this week other instances have emerged where the Google- branded cars with roof-mounted cameras travelled down gravel paths to obtain images of private residences, which were uploaded to Google Maps without permission.