Just discovered this wonderful Pixar-esque video of how Google Street View protects privacy. If only life was really like this!!
Showing posts with label google street view. Show all posts
Showing posts with label google street view. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
If at first you don't succeed? A series of er Classical references.
French 3 strikes law Passes on Second Go.
To which one can only say, three strikes and you're er in?? Well, if you count the European Parliament's explicit refusal to agree to disconnection of filesharers by ISPs or the industry rather than courts six days before this vote, as a "strike"?.
And meanwhile, vive la Royaume Uni? Or at least les ISPs de RU..
Well, it should make the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday entertaining!
(And there's always the Greek entry in this increasingly silly non-summer of Internet law regulation..) Greeks Fear Google Bearing Gifts??
And what WOULD wily Odysseus have done with Google Street View? An ideal way to spy on the camp of Troy indeed!!
To which one can only say, three strikes and you're er in?? Well, if you count the European Parliament's explicit refusal to agree to disconnection of filesharers by ISPs or the industry rather than courts six days before this vote, as a "strike"?.
And meanwhile, vive la Royaume Uni? Or at least les ISPs de RU..
Well, it should make the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday entertaining!
(And there's always the Greek entry in this increasingly silly non-summer of Internet law regulation..) Greeks Fear Google Bearing Gifts??
And what WOULD wily Odysseus have done with Google Street View? An ideal way to spy on the camp of Troy indeed!!
Friday, March 27, 2009
Democracy Comes to Facebook?
Facebook is soliciting public comments on proposed new terms and conditions - see
Facebook Principles
Rights and Responsibilities
Pangloss is getting on train to Edinburgh to go to SCRIPT-ed, and will read them then to see if they actually change anything useful. But the sheer act of undertaking such consultation with a 100 million plus userbase, even if it is only PR, is really quite a remarkable landmark in the governance of web 2.0.
Also taking the Database State Report, the Digital Rights Agency consultation and various other reports. There will be blogging!
Finally, I note OUT_Law agrees with me that Google Street View is not illegal though for different reasons. Struan focuses on the recent UK ECHR-based case law on invasion of privacy as "breach of confidence", noting that the JK Rowling case seems to confirm that the UK courts do not recognise a right not to be photographed in a public place unless you, the data subject, are the focus of the camera's attention. Pangloss is less keen on this argument than her own resting on Art 7(f) of the DPD, (surprise), partly because the Art 8 ECHR law is in such flux and partly because it reinforces the data protection equivalent case of Durant which many DP commentators feel was wrongly decided. but it's a good piece : read it.
Facebook Principles
Rights and Responsibilities
Pangloss is getting on train to Edinburgh to go to SCRIPT-ed, and will read them then to see if they actually change anything useful. But the sheer act of undertaking such consultation with a 100 million plus userbase, even if it is only PR, is really quite a remarkable landmark in the governance of web 2.0.
Also taking the Database State Report, the Digital Rights Agency consultation and various other reports. There will be blogging!
Finally, I note OUT_Law agrees with me that Google Street View is not illegal though for different reasons. Struan focuses on the recent UK ECHR-based case law on invasion of privacy as "breach of confidence", noting that the JK Rowling case seems to confirm that the UK courts do not recognise a right not to be photographed in a public place unless you, the data subject, are the focus of the camera's attention. Pangloss is less keen on this argument than her own resting on Art 7(f) of the DPD, (surprise), partly because the Art 8 ECHR law is in such flux and partly because it reinforces the data protection equivalent case of Durant which many DP commentators feel was wrongly decided. but it's a good piece : read it.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Google Street View - Up Your Street?
Many of my friends and colleagues have been having fun with Google Street View since it went live in the UK last week. My social networking Friends lists are full of people exclaiming "OH MY GOD that's my house!!!" or happily pointing out their car, their garden and in one case, their boyfriend leaning out of the window. Those who live in cities not yet rolled out, bemoan their luck and count how many yards they are from the Googlezone.
Others are not so happy. Privacy International, a well respected privacy watchdog, have already announced their intention to take Google to court on the grounds that they are breaking data protection law, and have made a formal complaint to the Information Commissioner.
Says the Beeb, "Privacy International wants the ICO to look again at how Street View works.
So is G. Street View ("manic street features" as another BBC piece gleefully calls it) the greatest free of cost and publcly available innovation to hit online mapping ever, or another piece in the jigsaw of ubiquitous commercial and government surveillance in the UK?
Pangloss admits to have been far more excited than worried when she first got the news. Google have invested a pretty large amount of effort into protecting privacy, having learnt from earlier protests and roll outs in the US as well as accepting the reality of ldata protection law in Europe. Faces and number plates have been, with some fairly low margin of error pixelated out. There are indeed errors: we have already had reports of people asking to have maps taken down because they depicted them being sick outside a pub or visiting a well known brothel. But Google have also provided an extremely easy to use take-down request system. Have they done enough?
My esteemed colleague Ian Brown of the OII doesn't think so (and repeated these feelings during a brisk debate last night at a post privacy conference dinner :) Said Ian to the Beeb:
"They [Google] should have thought more carefully about how they designed the service to avoid exactly this sort of thing."
We need a real debate here about whether privacy invasion should be regarded as purely an individual issue or a societal problem; similarly whether GSV brings advantages to society as a whole (surely?) and do these outweigh the privacy loss to the few individuals. If GSV sparks this debate it will in itself have been of value.
Ian's compromise solution above - essentially, get it right the first time so as to minimise privacy intrustions requiring post factum take down - is a pragmatic one but does not in essence meet the above theoretical problem. It raises another pragmatic problem too - Google has already spent vast amounts providing a fantastic service for free to the UK public. Yes, they wil gain from ad revenue - but this is still an enormous free gift to the public as a whole. How much more money would it be reasonable to ask them to spend to meet the needs of the very few?
Taking two pictures of every location would presumably have doubled costs. Would fewer cities then be rolled out? Would there be more social and digital exclusion? Will rural areas ever be included in fact? and would someone living next to a person who had had "his" street view pulled out by justifiably irritated at his social exclusion? Should the invaded privacy rights of a few be allowed to stifle technological innovation for everyone? If we consider the P2P debate where the same issue arises - should theeconomic interests of the few in the entertainment industries be allowed to stifle useful innovation for the rest of us? - then generally the informed answer is no. There are many more societal cost/benefit balances to be thought about here.
In the meantime, Pangloss is going to go off to yet another workshop to talk about privacy and trust in next generation networks. Do we indeed trust Google to know where we live and to respect our privacy? Most do but some don't, it appears. Yet Google cannot automate, and thus provide at reasonable cost, the amazing services it delivers for "free" , unless we all agree on this in adavance, or at least are presumed to agree, subject to later opt out. This may be becoming a key problem of the digital era :)
Others are not so happy. Privacy International, a well respected privacy watchdog, have already announced their intention to take Google to court on the grounds that they are breaking data protection law, and have made a formal complaint to the Information Commissioner.
Says the Beeb, "Privacy International wants the ICO to look again at how Street View works.
"The ICO has repeatedly made clear that it believes that in Street View the necessary safeguards are in place to protect people's privacy," said Google.
Privacy International (PI) director Simon Davies said his organisation had filed the complaint given the "clear embarrassment and damage" Street View had caused to many Britons."
So is G. Street View ("manic street features" as another BBC piece gleefully calls it) the greatest free of cost and publcly available innovation to hit online mapping ever, or another piece in the jigsaw of ubiquitous commercial and government surveillance in the UK?
Pangloss admits to have been far more excited than worried when she first got the news. Google have invested a pretty large amount of effort into protecting privacy, having learnt from earlier protests and roll outs in the US as well as accepting the reality of ldata protection law in Europe. Faces and number plates have been, with some fairly low margin of error pixelated out. There are indeed errors: we have already had reports of people asking to have maps taken down because they depicted them being sick outside a pub or visiting a well known brothel. But Google have also provided an extremely easy to use take-down request system. Have they done enough?
My esteemed colleague Ian Brown of the OII doesn't think so (and repeated these feelings during a brisk debate last night at a post privacy conference dinner :) Said Ian to the Beeb:
"They [Google] should have thought more carefully about how they designed the service to avoid exactly this sort of thing."
| |
Dr Brown said Google could have taken images twice, on different days, so offending images could have been easily replaced and protected privacy better.
Google says it has gone to great lengths to ensure privacy, suggesting that the service only shows imagery already visible from public thoroughfares."
There are a number of ways to frame this debate. One is the question of opt in to privacy, versus opt out. In the same way that Google Library has tried to push copyright discourse from opt in - consnt by authors to copying of their work - to opt out - asking to be left out of the scheme if not wanting copies to be made (and failed - given the recent settlement?) - it is arguably trying to do the same with privacy here.
If privacy is indeed a fundamental human right, then it can be argued that in principle no one should have to be exposed to even a low risk of an intrusion of privacy by error (let's leave the debate on what that exactly is, plus the debate on how far your privacy stretches in a public place, aside for the minute) and then have to request take down; instead`they should always be asked to give consent a priori. This is probably in gist PI's argument as to why what Google is doing is illegal.
In strict law, Pangloss is not really sure if this is right: the UK DP Act (and the EC DP Directive) do not always demand consent to processing of personal data - there is a well known exception which allows processing to be undertaken without consent if it is in pursuance of a legitimate aim of the data processor (Google) and does not at the same time unreasonably prejudice human rights (DPD, Art 7(f)).
A "few dozen" requests seem to have been made for take down, according to the BBC. If we knew how many views there are on GSV we could work out what percent have been privacy invading.It is probably a very very low percent. But is this the right way to construct the Art 7(f) balance? or should we be looking only at the degree of privacy invasion suffered by each individual data subject concerned - how much they lost - their wife, their job?We need a real debate here about whether privacy invasion should be regarded as purely an individual issue or a societal problem; similarly whether GSV brings advantages to society as a whole (surely?) and do these outweigh the privacy loss to the few individuals. If GSV sparks this debate it will in itself have been of value.
Ian's compromise solution above - essentially, get it right the first time so as to minimise privacy intrustions requiring post factum take down - is a pragmatic one but does not in essence meet the above theoretical problem. It raises another pragmatic problem too - Google has already spent vast amounts providing a fantastic service for free to the UK public. Yes, they wil gain from ad revenue - but this is still an enormous free gift to the public as a whole. How much more money would it be reasonable to ask them to spend to meet the needs of the very few?
Taking two pictures of every location would presumably have doubled costs. Would fewer cities then be rolled out? Would there be more social and digital exclusion? Will rural areas ever be included in fact? and would someone living next to a person who had had "his" street view pulled out by justifiably irritated at his social exclusion? Should the invaded privacy rights of a few be allowed to stifle technological innovation for everyone? If we consider the P2P debate where the same issue arises - should theeconomic interests of the few in the entertainment industries be allowed to stifle useful innovation for the rest of us? - then generally the informed answer is no. There are many more societal cost/benefit balances to be thought about here.
In the meantime, Pangloss is going to go off to yet another workshop to talk about privacy and trust in next generation networks. Do we indeed trust Google to know where we live and to respect our privacy? Most do but some don't, it appears. Yet Google cannot automate, and thus provide at reasonable cost, the amazing services it delivers for "free" , unless we all agree on this in adavance, or at least are presumed to agree, subject to later opt out. This may be becoming a key problem of the digital era :)
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Google Pot Shots
As has been true for some time, it seems to be open season on Google. With great innovation, comes great.. um.. legal liability? Here's a very quick round up..
OUT-LAW restrainedly report "Google's Street View could be unlawful in Europe".
"Well, you can't say fairer than that " said an unamed source at Google..
The question here seems to be whether you view Google Street View as more like looking at the world with your own eyes, say from the top of a double decker bus (unconditionally legal) or as more like CCTV (regulated, at least in the EU, by DP law, and also by some case law of the ECHR, such as Peck). AS OUT-LAW note, if the latter paradigm is applied, then Google need to give adequate notice that surveillance is in operation to anyone who might be caught on STreet View and identifiable a a living person. Will we see 40 feet high billboards over London announcing "YOu are now on Google Maps. Be very afraid."? It reminds Pangloss of the old suggestion that London streets should be painted with the squares of the London A-Z for easy navigation.. One way out of this not identified by the otherwise excellent Struan Robertson, is the Durant v FSA get-out - it might be argued that no particular person is the focus of the attention of Google Street View and therefore no particular person has DP rights. Of course, Durant may not last forever:-)
More seriously, Google's privacy practice is apparently worse than Microsoft's. Yes, really Jemima - at least according to the much respected Privacy International, who surveyed a variety of Internet businesses. Results:
Privacy-friendly and privacy-enhancing. Nobody...
Generally privacy-aware: BBC, Ebay, last.fm, LiveJournal, Wikipedia
Notable lapses of privacy: Amazon, Bebo, Friendster, Linkedin, Myspace, Skype
Serious Lapses: Microsoft, OrKut, Xanga, YouTube
Substantial Threat to privacy: AOL, Apple, Facebook, Hi5, Reunion.com, Windows LiveSpaces, Yahoo
Hostile to privacy, comprehensive consumer surveillance: Google
Not everyone is convinced - see rebuttal at http://searchengineland.com/070610-100246.php .
(With thanks to Pete Fenelon for tip off.)
OUT-LAW restrainedly report "Google's Street View could be unlawful in Europe".
"Well, you can't say fairer than that " said an unamed source at Google..
The question here seems to be whether you view Google Street View as more like looking at the world with your own eyes, say from the top of a double decker bus (unconditionally legal) or as more like CCTV (regulated, at least in the EU, by DP law, and also by some case law of the ECHR, such as Peck). AS OUT-LAW note, if the latter paradigm is applied, then Google need to give adequate notice that surveillance is in operation to anyone who might be caught on STreet View and identifiable a a living person. Will we see 40 feet high billboards over London announcing "YOu are now on Google Maps. Be very afraid."? It reminds Pangloss of the old suggestion that London streets should be painted with the squares of the London A-Z for easy navigation.. One way out of this not identified by the otherwise excellent Struan Robertson, is the Durant v FSA get-out - it might be argued that no particular person is the focus of the attention of Google Street View and therefore no particular person has DP rights. Of course, Durant may not last forever:-)
More seriously, Google's privacy practice is apparently worse than Microsoft's. Yes, really Jemima - at least according to the much respected Privacy International, who surveyed a variety of Internet businesses. Results:
Privacy-friendly and privacy-enhancing. Nobody...
Generally privacy-aware: BBC, Ebay, last.fm, LiveJournal, Wikipedia
Notable lapses of privacy: Amazon, Bebo, Friendster, Linkedin, Myspace, Skype
Serious Lapses: Microsoft, OrKut, Xanga, YouTube
Substantial Threat to privacy: AOL, Apple, Facebook, Hi5, Reunion.com, Windows LiveSpaces, Yahoo
Hostile to privacy, comprehensive consumer surveillance: Google
Not everyone is convinced - see rebuttal at http://searchengineland.com/070610-100246.php .
(With thanks to Pete Fenelon for tip off.)
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