Digital Journal — Chill out, Canada, Google told Canucks today regarding its Street View application that lets anyone see street-level photos of various city locations. Google is assuring Canadians that when the StreetView app arrives in the country, its stringent privacy laws will be respected.
Google’s privacy counsel said today the company will respect a country’s privacy policies when it makes Street View available there. In an interview with the Globe & Mail, Google’s Peter Fleischer said:
“The U.S. has a long tradition of saying that it is legal and appropriate to take pictures from public spaces and publish them. But clearly, we’re aware that different countries around the world strike a different balance between this idea of a public place on the one hand and people’s expectation of privacy.”
Fleischer is responding to concerns from Canada’s privacy commissioner about the implications of Street View in the Great White North, where it is still unavailable. Jennifer Stoddart recently wrote a letter to Google, saying Street View may violate the country’s privacy law, which prohibits the commercial use of someone’s data without their permission. Street View, used in several U.S. cities, shows street-level photographs of addresses that users search for. The photos were taken by a fleet of cars belonging to Immersive Media based in Calgary.
When Street View launches in other countries, Fleischer said Google will make sure local privacy laws are taken into account. He told PC World:
“We understand that means that we’ll have to ensure that there aren’t identifiable faces and license plates in some countries. There’s an important public policy debate in every country around what privacy means in public spaces. That balance will vary from country to country, and Street View will respect it.”
Fleischer told the Globe that Google doesn’t have “an exact timeline” on when Street View will debut in Canada, but he mentioned the Internet giant is working on it now.
