Restricting Internet Mapping Imagery

Monday March 02nd 2009
Filed Under Issues in GIS, Privacy Issues 

A California Assemblyman, Joel Anderson, is trying to find a committee home for his proposed bill to restrict the publication of imagery covering certain buildings on Internet mapping sites.  His bill would call for the blurring of imagery covering what he calls “soft terrorism” targets: schools, hospitals, churches and all government buildings.  His apparent inspiration is from reading about terrorism attacks that were plotted from imagery obtained from Google Earth and Microsoft’s Virtual Earth:

“All I’m trying to do is stop terrorists,” said Anderson is quoted as saying. “I don’t want California to be helping map out future targets for terrorists.”

Ironically, if the bill does gain traction and eventually becomes law, many of these buildings already are available online as many schools, hospitals and government agencies post photos of the buildings online through their respective web sites. 

Read more; California lawmaker targets Internet mapping sites - Mercury News

         

Street View on the Move in the UK

Saturday July 05th 2008
Filed Under Google Maps, Privacy Issues 

Despite the potential to be referred to the Information Commissioner, Google apparently has started gathering the street level imagery needed to launch Street View in the United Kingdom.  According to the BBC, Privacy International, a British rights group, believes that Google’s technology breaks privacy laws in that country:

“In our view they need a person’s consent if they make use of a person’s face for commercial ends,” said Simon Davis of the group.

The group has written to Google asking for more information on their face blurring technology and has vowed to ask the Information Commissioner to suspend Google’s picture taking activities if they don’t receive the technical information they are looking for.

TechCrunch UK has posted a picture of the GooCar as evidence that Google has begun collecting imagery for Street View.

         

Street View Not Welcome in North Oaks

Sunday June 01st 2008
Filed Under Google Maps, Privacy Issues 

The St. Paul suburb of Minnesota is likely the first U.S. jurisdiction to demand that Google remove all imagery of the community of North Oaks from their online database.  Apparently the entire city of 4,500 lives on privately owned roads.  A letter demanding the removal of the imagery was sent in January and was complied by Google shortly thereafter.  Interestingly, the article cites Ramsey County Commissioner Victoria Reinhardt who stresses that local citizenry understand that “The bottom line is what GIS and what Google is doing are not the same thing,” Reinhardt said. “[Geographic information systems] use aerial photography, but that’s very different than driving up my driveway.”

         

Google Blurring Street View Faces

Wednesday May 14th 2008
Filed Under Features, Privacy Issues 

Google has started to automatically blur faces on their Street View imagery.  Using a facial recognition algorithm, Google has started to blur faces in New York City.  From the Google Lat Long blog:

We’re also taking this opportunity to test our new face-blurring technology on the busy streets of Manhattan. This effort has been a year in the making — working at Street View-scale is a tough challenge that required us to advance state-of-the-art automatic face detection, and we continue working hard to improve it as we roll it out for our existing and future imagery.

The move is an effort to address privacy concerns in the United States and to be in compliance with regulations as Street View is expanded into other countries. 

         

Mapping Sites Being Investigated by China

Wednesday May 07th 2008
Filed Under Features, Issues in GIS, Privacy Issues 

Min Yiren, vice head of the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping, claims that there are 10,000 illegal mapping web sites in China. Google, among others, is being investigated as part of an effort to get rid of mapping sites that don’t depict borders according to the requirements of the Chinese government. Additionally, sites that show sensitive areas are also being investigated.

Read more: China to investigate Google for illegal maps: official media

         

Privacy in GIS Issues

Tuesday April 22nd 2008
Filed Under Link Library, Privacy Issues 

The increase of GIS usage has brought with it a rise in public concern over privacy. The proliferation of easily accessible public information via the web is one of the reasons.  The availability of not only aerial and satellite imagery but also street level imagery has also raised questions about the balance between the public’s righto access information versus the individual person’s right to privacy.  A.F. Westin in Privacy and Freedom (1967) defined privacy as “the claim of individuals … to determine for themselves when, how, and to what extent information about them is communicated to others.”  Read more

         

Google Sued over “Street View” for Alleged Privacy Invasion

Friday April 04th 2008
Filed Under Issues in GIS, Privacy Issues 

A couple living on a private road in Pittsburgh is suing Google for invasion of privacy. According to a post on the Smoking Gun, Aaron and Christine Boring accuse Google of an “intentional and/or grossly reckless invasion” of their seclusion and privacy since they live on a street that is “clearly marked with a ‘Private Road’ sign”. For their “trauma”, the couple is seeking $25,000 in damages and a court order to remove and destroy the imagery from the Internet. What is noted of interest by the Smoking Gun is that not only are pictures of the house available on Google Map but also on the Allegheny County’s Office of Property Assessments which apparently is not part of the lawsuit. This seems to be the first attempt to sue Google over alleged invasion of privacy although many pundits have previously asserted that pictures taken in public are legal.  The crux of the lawsuit will apparently center around the argument that private roads are not part of public space.

         

Will Google’s Street View be legal in Canada?

Thursday September 13th 2007
Filed Under Google Maps, Issues in GIS, Privacy Issues 

Google’s launch of their street level imagery for select cities in the United States brought up many questions of privacy but, for the most part, the availability of publicy taken photography is legal. The same isn’t true for Canada and now Canadian officials have sent an enquiry to Google to determine if the Street View imagery would be legal if launched for Canadian cities. C|Net takes a look at the privacy and legals issues as first raised in an article in The Canadian Press.

         

Microsoft Live Search gets too close for comfort

Wednesday September 05th 2007
Filed Under Live Search Maps, Privacy Issues 

Information Week points out that the U.S. Navy is disturbed about an aerial available on Microsoft’s Live Search site that shows in detail the propeller on a submarine:

The picture reveals the seven-bladed prop in remarkable detail. The image was apparently captured while the boomer was in dry dock at the Navy’s base in Bangor, Wash.

If would seem to me, that if the submarine was that sensitive to inquiring minds, that a simple canvas over the top of the dock or some other type of cover would have solved the issue of preventing the submarine from being photographed. 

         

New York Taxi Drivers Strike Over GPS

Wednesday September 05th 2007
Filed Under Current Events, GPS, Privacy Issues 

UPDATE (From CNN):

A group of taxi drivers launched a two-day strike Wednesday, right in the middle of the New York Fashion Week and the U.S. Open tennis tournament, to protest a city plan to require GPS tracking in cabs. 

NY cab drivers are on strike Wednesday, September 5th and Thursday, September 6th for 48 hours over plans by Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) to install GPS technology in all cabs.  The New York Taxi Workers Alliance [NYTWA], which represents the taxi drivers, states that the objections are Read more

         

Launch of Google Street View

Thursday May 31st 2007
Filed Under Features, Google Maps, Privacy Issues 

Google unveiled its latest foray into the geospatial world with the launch on May 29th of its Street View application. Starting with Times Square, New York City, The Golden Gate Bride in San Francisco, and South Beach in Miami, users can access an additional button called “Street View” to see street level photos which provide a 360 degree view of the street. You can grab the icon of a person on the map to move around the city. Once you drag and drop the icon to the new location, a street level image pops up. You can further navigate up or down the street or use the arrows in the upper left hand corner to rotate the view and zoom in and out of the image. Read more