Street View is on the map for good

Thursday 09 April 2009 | By Heidi Scott, Gosh! Media Copywriter

When Google Street View launched in the UK back in March, its arrival was met with a mixture of excitement and scorn. While many Internet users are delighted with the street-level mapping service, privacy activists have been, well, active.

Of course, there have been scenes unintentionally snapped by Google's roaming camera cars that have captured the public's imagination – through being scandalous, horrifying or just plain bizarre. There's been a good deal of controversy and even some anger, such as when the residents of sleepy Broughton in Buckinghamshire prevented a Street View camera car from entering the village through fears about privacy invasion and possible crime. Most recently, the service has been investigated by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), following complaints from, among others, Privacy International. The ICO ruled that Street View should be allowed to continue, saying that banning the mapping service would be "disproportionate to the relatively small risk of privacy detriment."

And Google has confirmed that Street View is here to stay. In an interview with The Times newspaper, John Hanke, Head of Google Maps, said, "As a company we may not make 100 per cent of everybody happy in all situations but I don't think you can live your life as an individual or as a company not wanting to step on anybody's toes." Speaking from Google's HQ at Mountain View, California, he said of Street View, "We know it is really popular and people are using it broadly and I am totally convinced that they are not all using it to plan robberies. I tend to think that societies like ours come down on the side of information being good for the economy and good for us as individuals."

Google promotes Street View as a useful tool for house-hunting, journey-planning or arranging meetings with friends or work associates. John Hanke describes Street View, combined with the Google Maps service, as a "reasonable proxy" for going there in person.

"For me it is a really simple idea," said Hanke. "Street View allows you to do something from your desktop that you used to have to get in your car and drive around to do. It is taking people off the road, burning less fuel and saving people time. It is about giving people powerful information so that they can make better choices."

Hanke – co-founder and CEO of Keyhole, a global mapping company that was acquired by Google in 2004 and became Google Earth – oversaw the launch of Street View. The service, which now comprises tens of millions of panoramic photos, acts as the base level layer for Google Maps and Earth, a facility that uses satellite images to allow users to navigate the world to view cities, buildings and streets.

John Hanke is no stranger to controversy, having had to fend off allegations concerning the security implications of Google Maps' aerial imagery. Terrorists in Mumbai are thought to have used mapping technology to help plan their attacks, for example, and Google had to replace images of a British base in Iraq after objections from the military.

Mr Hanke said that he fully expected the controversy surrounding Street View in the UK to die down once people understood the technology and its limitations better, pointing out that Street View images will be updated at best once a year and probably only once every two years.

"It is not real time, you can see that there is a red vehicle in front of a house on a certain day," he explains. "But can you check on Street View to see if there is anyone at home? No, because it is one image taken at a certain point in time. It does not tell you anything about whether the car is there now or whether it is there every day."

Street View was launched in the US in 2007 and has gradually been expanded to include more cities around the world. In the UK, it currently includes 25 leading cities and Google intends to cover most cities and towns in the country by the end of 2010.

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