The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has published new advice on Google Street View in response to a complaint from Privacy International.
David Evans, Senior Data Protection Practice Manager said: “As a regulator we take a pragmatic and common sense approach. Any images of people’s faces or number plates should be blurred. We emphasised the importance of blurring these images to protect people’s privacy and limit privacy intrusion. Google must respond quickly to deletion requests and complaints as it is doing at the moment. We will be watching closely to make sure this continues to be achieved in practice.
“However, it is important to highlight that putting images of people on Google Street View is very unlikely to formally breach the Data Protection Act. Watch the TV news any day this week and you will see people walking past reporters in the street. Some football fans’ faces will be captured on Match of the Day and local news programmes this weekend – without their consent, but perfectly legally. In the same way there is no law against anyone taking pictures of people in the street as long as the person using the camera is not harassing people. Google Street View does not contravene the Data Protection Act and, in any case, it is not in the public interest to turn the digital clock back. In a world where many people tweet, facebook and blog it is important to take a common sense approach towards Street View and the relatively limited privacy intrusion it may cause.”
The ICO receives over 100,000 telephone calls a year, including 25,000 data protection related complaints. The ICO has confirmed to Privacy International that the removal of an entire service of this type would be disproportionate to the relatively small risk of privacy detriment.
