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Google Street View: It Knows Where You Are!
Google has found itself under fire this month as authorities declared that it had grossly breached privacy laws through its controversial Street View tool. The mapping service was found to have been gathering confidential data though its Street View cars including emails, passwords and complete web addresses. Although the company has not been financially penalised for the breach, Google has agreed to implement more privacy training for its employees along with deleting any data that it collected.
From the moment that Google Street View was introduced it provoked its fair share of fears regarding privacy. The Street View cars started their journey in America where they took thousands of pictures at street level, almost immediately the internet was awash with pictures of unsuspecting people being arrested and even urinating in public.
http://www.gstreetsightings.com/
In 2009 the service made its way across the pond to the UK, taking pictures of nearly every street in the country and covering a grand total of 238,000 miles. Not everyone welcomed the arrival of the cars, with several small villages even asking Google’s vehicles to leave their neighbourhood. Some celebrities have also not taken kindly to the service with Paul McCartney requesting that Google takes his house off the Street View service. Car registrations and people faces were supposed to be blurred out by the technology use by Google however in several cases people’s faces can clearly be seen.
By escaping a financial penalty it may seem that Google has got off lightly, however the privacy issues that have been brought to light will only raise more questions about the service.