Google Street View comes to Finland

Data Protection Ombudsman ponders whether there are grounds to act on the service

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The Google Street View service, providing images of Finland's streets and roads, went public on Tuesday and immediately set online spotters into action in search of entertaining and offbeat material caught on camera.
     
Links appeared like magic on message boards, directing users to images in which conscripts were seen drilling, powerfully intoxicated persons attempted to remain upright, the police were going about their business, or people were caught gazing intently through the display windows of sex-shops.
      Some people found themselves or their car registration plate from the images, although the service should by rights have pixellated or blurred such personal information, rendering faces unrecognisable.
     
Last spring and summer, Google filmed thousands upon thousands of kilometres of street scenes, particularly in built-up areas, although the cameras went as far north as Utsjoki and Inari in Lapland.
      The pictures were taken by a handful of cars that drove around the country with cameras mounted on the roof.
      The high visibility of the cars meant that in some of the images - for example of busy Helsinki streets - people can be seen waving or pointing at the cameras.
     
According to Anni Ronkainen from Google Finland, the depth of coverage in Finland has been greater than in many other countries.
      Google Street View thus far extends to some 20 or so countries.
      The service does spark certain legal and moral questions, for instance the filming of people going about their normal business in their own front yard could in certain circumstances be seen as the act of a peeping tom.
      Equally, showing a recognisable image of a person who is much the worse for drink might qualify as disseminating information that violates personal privacy.
     
Google will on request remove individuals or properties from the scenes, or will increase the level of blurring to make persons unrecognisable. According to Anni Ronkainen, such requests will be responded to within 24 hours.
      She said that no such calls from the authorities for sensitive material to be removed had been received before the service went live.
     
The Data Protection Ombudsman Reijo Aarnio has nevertheless reported that he is considering whether there should be any specific Finnish reaction to the service.
      There is already a common project going on within the EU, examining how to respond to the service in respect of data privacy considerations.
      In some countries the service has come in for criticism as intrusive, for instance in allowing sensitive material - perhaps one's being in the wrong place with the wrong person at the wrong time - to be spread on the Net.
      "If problems do start to come up, for instance matters leaning towards voyeurism and such, it would probably be a good thing if the authorities themselves would take steps, in order that individual citizens do not have to go to the trouble", Aarnio noted on Tuesday.


Links:
  Data Protection Ombudsman
  Google Maps with Street View

Helsingin Sanomat