Swiss privacy watchdog demands withdrawal of Swiss Street View

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.