You're not Googling us: The Blairs, House of Commons and Google boss won't have THEIR privacy invaded on Street View

Tony and Cherie Blair: You won't find their London house on Google's Street View

Google was at the centre of new controversy last night after pictures of Tony Blair’s London home were mysteriously removed from its Street View web service.

Images of the House of Commons, the entrance to Downing Street and several Government departments were also blacked out.

And it also emerged that Google’s own boss in the UK does not have his London house on Street View.

Anyone typing Mr Blair’s address into the website, which allows people to see 360-degree pictures of streets, including close-ups of houses and buildings, is met with the message: ‘This image is no longer available.’

While the front of Mr Blair’s house has been blacked out, it is still visible from a slightly different angle.

Ironically, when the Blairs bought their Connaught Square townhouse they installed closed-circuit TV cameras around the building to address their ‘security needs’ – provoking anger from neighbours. Critics also pointed out that while in office Mr Blair presided over a ‘surveillance society’.

There appeared to be some confusion yesterday over why the Foreign Office and the Treasury buildings on Whitehall had been removed, while other departments such as the Northern Ireland Office and the Ministry of Defence remained visible.

The Treasury and the Foreign Office denied that any representations had been made to Google.



But a Google spokesman said: ‘We would never proactively remove or blur a property and we only do so on request from the owners. For public buildings such as a Government office, the request would have to be made in an official capacity.’

No entry: Google's car-mounted cameras couldn't go down this private West London road, where the company's UK boss Dennis Woodside happens to live

One theory is that the Metropolitan Police may have been concerned about images of officers in front of the buildings appearing on the website.

Despite assurances from Google about blurring people’s faces, the face of one officer guarding the Blair home was visible.

Scotland Yard was unable to shed any light on the issue, saying it did not discuss security matters.

Mr Woodside won't have his privacy invaded online - but the rest of us aren't so lucky

Last night, in the absence of any explanation for the removal of the pictures, campaigners mocked the Government’s apparent double standards.

Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti said: ‘It is delicious irony, even a modern morality tale, when those who have perpetrated so much snooping protest personal privacy for themselves.

‘So much for “nothing to hide, nothing to fear!” Perhaps we all have something to fear after all.’

Guy Herbert of campaign group NO2ID said: ‘It is astonishing that a Government which gave council tax valuation officials the power to enter your home and take photos of it from the inside should worry about what ordinary people can see of their properties from the outside.’

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling said: ‘Perhaps the Government will now understand why there is so much concern about the extent of all their plans to monitor the lives of the people they represent.’

It was also unclear why the front of the House of Commons, viewed from Parliament Square, had been blacked out – but was clearly visible from other angles. It is still possible to view the rear of the Commons from Westminster Bridge, for instance, and even zoom in on the riverside terrace, popular among MPs in the summer.

The Serjeant at Arms is the official responsible for maintaining law and order in and around the Commons, but her office was unavailable for comment last night.

Anyone in the world can now see close-up online pictures of millions of houses and buildings, sometimes even through windows, and it is thought that many celebrities will also be opting out of the service.

Some people, however, managed to escape the all-seeing spy cameras. Among them is Dennis Woodside, the boss of Google UK.

Before: The Google image of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament...

After: ...but it was subsequently removed due to security fears

Mr Woodside was spared inclusion because his £2million West London townhouse stands on a private road, inaccessible to his company’s camera cars. Typing his postcode into the search engine merely sends users to a nearby street.

The 40-year-old American, who lives in the house with his wife Laura and two children, has been Google’s head of operations in the UK since 2006 and oversaw the complex implementation of Street View.

Launched last Thursday, the service appears to have attracted more awe than anger about privacy invasion.

Google spokeswoman Laura Scott said requests from members of the public for images of themselves or their homes to be removed ran into the ‘hundreds’. ‘I can’t be precise about the figure but it’s below 1,000, which isn’t bad considering tens of millions of locations can be seen on the site,’ she said.

Among the images removed are a man emerging from a sex shop in Soho and a reveller vomiting outside an East London pub. The screen now just says: ‘This image is no longer available’ on a black background.

At the launch of the service, the company pledged to blur all faces and number plates using special software.



A spokesman for the Information Commissioner’s Office said it will investigate any complaints. ‘The ICO is satisfied that Google is putting in place adequate safeguards to minimise any risk to the privacy or safety of individuals,’ he said.

‘Individuals who have raised concerns with Google and who do not think they have received a satisfactory response can raise that concern with the ICO.’



One of the cameras used to record streets for Google Street View

The images are not ‘live’ but were taken by a fleet of Google cars last summer as they drove along more than 2,000 miles of public roads.



Within hours of going live the service, available through the Google Maps website, had attracted millions of hits.

But despite Google’s pledge to protect privacy, not all faces and numberplates were blurred, and some people were easily recognisable.

Street View was launched in America two years ago and has since been expanded to cities in France, Italy, Spain, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.



The British version features tens of millions of photos of 25 cities including London, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Manchester, Oxford and Leeds.



More towns and cities will be added over the next few years, and the photos are expected to be updated every two or three years.



Google believes Street View will be popular with shoppers trying to find stores, drinkers looking for pubs, and house buyers wanting to find out more about neighbourhoods. The service is free and available on personal computers and to those with a mobile phone, including iPhones and BlackBerrys.



Google’s Ed Parsons said the company would black out any photographs if homeowners objected to their properties being on display using an online form.



‘Privacy is really important to us,’ he said. ‘We recognise that there have been concerns about that and we think we have addressed those concerns.

‘The images you see on Street View are the same images you would see if you were to walk or drive down the road yourself.’



How to get your house removed



To remove your house from Street View, visit the website and click on the words ‘Report a concern’ in the bottom left of the screen. Then click ‘privacy concerns’, followed by ‘my house’ then ‘I have seen a picture of my house and would like it removed’.

A Google spokeswoman said requests for images to be removed were nearly always complied with. ‘All we ask is that the reporting form is filled in correctly.



‘If someone wants their house taken off, we will do what they want but only after we have verified that they are the homeowner.’

