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German court rejects Street View privacy claim


A German court has rejected a woman's claim that Google's Street View service could have invaded her privacy because the camera was higher than her two metre hedge.

The Berlin State Supreme Court ruled that the woman's privacy was not invaded because the photographs were taken from the street and there were additional protections in place for people worried about their privacy, according to a report by German broadcaster Deutsche Welle.

The woman feared that because the car-mounted cameras taking the pictures that make up Google's street-mapping service were three metres high, they would see over her two metre high hedge and potentially depict her, her family or the front of her house. This, she said, would be a privacy violation.

The Court disagreed, because the photographs were taken from the street. Google also automatically blurs faces and vehicle number plates, and in Germany agreed to blur out any buildings that owners or residents asked it to.

The company has previously said that it had had 244,000 requests for building blurring, representing around three per cent of buildings covered by its service.

Pinsent Masons and AmberhawkTraining will be running a data protection law update session on 11 April. Details and booking information (4-page / 164KB PDF)

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