By Rebecca Xu
<[email protected]>

One day last year, a friend of Tyler Smitson, a former student then a freshman, told him that there was a picture of him on Google Street View.  Smitson went home, searched his address on Google Maps and clicked on Street View.  The result was a blurry image depicting him playing basketball in his driveway.

Since its debut in May 2007, Google Street View has raised eyebrows on the issue of privacy.  Specially-equipped cars drive down public streets and take 360-degree pictures of the surrounding areas, including people and cars if they just happen to be there.  So far, Google has covered more than 40 cities and many of their suburbs, including Carmel.

It’s common to see a photograph of a mother taking a stroll with her baby, people jogging or someone playing ball in a driveway much like in Smitson’s case.  In fact, there’s a picture of two girls at this school waiting to cross the street.  Although they may seem disturbing to some people, these images definitely don’t break any privacy laws.

Holly Wanzer is an attorney at Hollingsworth, Jocham & Zivitz, PC, located here in Carmel.  Wanzer said, “Something is considered an invasion of privacy if a person is portrayed offensively in a false manner, if private and unrelated and often embarrassing facts are revealed about a person or if someone physically intrudes on a person such as through spy cameras or opening that person’s mail.  Google hasn’t done any of these things.”

Even if Google Street View captures a person doing something unflattering, it’s completely legal to post it because the picture was taken from a public place.

“The picture looks like just any kid playing basketball in the driveway.  If I didn’t already know it was my house, there would be no way of telling who it is in the picture,” Smitson said.

Junior Dianya Pu is another person who was photographed on Street View.  She was opening her garage door at the time.

“You can’t really see anything, just a seemingly random person opening a garage door,” Pu said.  “Especially since my back was to the camera.”

Some other people have responded to Google Street View with less nonchalance.  One woman made it into a New York Times story for complaining about the program over a picture of her cat visible through her window, although the image was extremely blurry from zooming in so much. One couple from Pennsylvania went as far as to sue Google for invasion of privacy.

“It would be pretty much impossible to win a lawsuit like that since the Google photos were taken on public property,” Wanzer said.

Smitson believes that those certain individuals take Street View too seriously.

“I think that the people who feel threatened by this are making too big of a deal out of the Street View because all it does is help people find a place once they are in the general area,” Smitson said. “I guess some stalker could try to use it, but he would already have to know my address to look it up so it probably couldn’t be that bad.”

To appease those who find Street View invasive, Google offers a process for its users to flag and remove imagery they consider offensive or a breach of privacy.  Stephen Chau, the product manager of the Google Maps program, said in a New York Times interview that the team members “routinely review takedown requests and act quickly to remove any objectionable imagery.”

Google also said that it blurs out license plate numbers and faces before releasing the images to the public.

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Top Google Street Views
Click here for pictures and description of the top Google Street View images.