Individual Eleven – The World's Cyberbrain

The inventive bods at Google just keep on innovating. Unfortunately, they probably need more foresight as they are in trouble again with privacy concerns. If you live in a large city and noticed suspicious looking vehicles with a mounted camera, then it is most likely Google taking pictures of the street you are standing in. Google Maps has something called Google Street View. This feature was implemented a couple of years ago in the US, but they are starting to go global. It’s a neat feature, if you click on your chosen location, you will be presented with a 360 degree pan of the street. It’s certainly a good idea if you have never been to the place before, or if you feel like exploring in the comfort of your armchair.

As you can imagine, you will never know when they will turn up and some people have been seen in compromising situations, caught inconveniently on camera. You can imagine the flood of complaints they have received. Another problem they face is their blurring technology; they implemented this to blur faces of people to protect their privacy. However, there have been cases of false positives, such as the blurring of all the football players on a large Manchester United banner. People have spotted some rather amusing images whilst using Google Street View and have posted them on The Times Online and the BBC News.

To be honest, most of these are relatively harmless and users do get a choice to submit a request for an image to be withdrawn, if you have any concerns about appearing in them. The street views for the UK is new, so there will always be some teething problems early on. But I think it’s a great idea and gives users a more immersive experience. In a way, it may even make people behave more civilly in public with the possibility of being exposed. On the flipside, it does give the impression of being watched all the time and I can understand how people may feel about this. Regrettably, our current society is constantly under surveillance and this is just something else to add to the ever-growing list of civil liberties being slowly eroded away.

Google Street View in Tottenham Court Rd, London. Blurred Mr. KFC

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