Switzerland's Federal Data Protection and Information
Commissioner Hanspeter Thuer has said that the service should be
shut down and that he would meet the company to discuss how it can
be brought into line with Swiss privacy law.
"The Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner
Hanspeter Thuer calls on Google Inc., to take the online service,
Google Street View, immediately from the net," said a statement
from Thuer's office in an automatic translation. "The requirements
of the protection of privacy are not fulfilled by Google Street
View," said the statement.
Google's Street View service has faced criticism in many
countries. Google always maintained that it would tailor the
service to different countries' privacy regimes. The European
Union has stricter privacy and data protection laws than the US and
Google agreed to blur the faces and car number plates in its
pictures in a concession to those laws.
But the Swiss Commission said that too many faces and number
plates were visible because they were "not at all or not
sufficiently blurred".
"The FDPIC calls on Google to rectify the product and ensure
that the published photographs are in line with the Swiss legal
system," said the statement.
The Greek data protection watchdog has also objected to the
Street View service, and Google promised the EU's data protection
commissioners earlier this year that it would delete the original,
unblurred images behind the blurred public images. It gave no
timetable for doing so.
The service was given the all-clear by the UK's Information
Commissioner's Office last summer ahead of a spring 2009 launch
because the blurring of faces and number plates was deemed to be
enough protection for individuals' privacy.
"We were surprised by the DPA's announcement," said a Google
spokeswoman. "We have been engaged in constructive dialogue with
the organisation ahead of this week's launch to demonstrate how we
protect people's privacy on Street View. And we're ready to do so
again or to answer any additional questions."
"Since launching last week, we have received very few removals
requests. However, we're very pleased, where removals or where
further blurring have been requested, for example where we have
missed the occasional face or license plate, that the technology
has been working so effectively and that in most cases images have
been removed within hours," she said.
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