Group seeks to scrap Google's Street View

Saturday 20th December, 08:05 AM JST

TOKYO —

A group of Japanese journalists, professors and lawyers demanded Friday that the U.S. Internet search giant Google scrap its Street View service in Japan, saying it violates people’s privacy.

Google launched Street View in the United States last year, providing pictures of panoramic all-around street-level views at locations on its online maps.

The service was expanded to 12 major cities in Japan in August and six cities in France in October.

The group said it sent a petition to Google’s Japanese subsidiary, demanding an end to the Street View service in Japan.

They wrote that Street View “constitutes violent infringement on citizens’ privacy by photographing residential areas, including community roads, and publishing their images without the consent of communities and citizens.”

They complained that via the Internet, Street View was distributing private information “more easily, widely, massively and permanently than ordinary cameras and surveillance cameras do.”

Local municipalities in Tokyo and Osaka have already appealed to the national government to take action against the site.

The Google Japanese unit earlier said it was blurring the faces of people seen in Street View scenes by special technology and that it would delete the pictures of people and buildings upon request.

Japan has stricter protections on privacy in public than in the United States, with Japanese able to stop their pictures from being used against their will.

Wire reports

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Latest 15 of 37 Total Comments Show All

likeitis at 09:55 PM JST - 20th December

how come you can buy a chintai map that has every house owners name printed on it? seems like gaijin doing something the japanese do is bad but japanese doing it is fine.

There is a big difference between a square drawn on a map with your name on it and a picture of your street complete with you going in your house with your mistress that your wife just happens to see while surfing the net on her overseas trip.

I almost typed another scenerio, but I don't give anybody any ideas. Lets just say this could also be used to facilitate all kinds of crime and not just against property. Some people stake places out, but its a time consuming process. I don't want to facilitate those people in any way.
Betting at 11:02 PM JST - 20th December

Due to abence and/or abuse of certain laws in Japan, some Japanese have become overly paranoid about their, "privacy" and they can take it too extremes.

But on the other hand, there have been other cases of embarrassing events involving Google Street View. There was a newspaper reported case in Australia where a man's car was photographed outside his ex-girlfriend's house ... she asked him over to enteratain him apparently, but ended very badly when the man's wife found the shot on Google. Maybe just bad timing in his case hehe.
flammenwerfer at 11:10 AM JST - 21st December

why dont these civil libertarians get all heated about other websites? how about this one? a live video feed of Dotonburi bridge in Osaka? http://tombori.com/livecam/

Nothing like people jumping on the bandwagon of one narrow specific cause.
likeitis at 01:13 PM JST - 21st December

why dont these civil libertarians get all heated about other websites? how about this one? a live video feed of Dotonburi bridge in Osaka? http://tombori.com/livecam/

Scope? Not being omnipotent?

I did not know about Street View until I read this article. I did not know about the bridge video feed until you posted it, and man, footage of people crossing a bridge is whole other ball of wax to taking a pic of a guy walking into a porn shop.
flammenwerfer at 01:58 PM JST - 21st December

taking a pic of a guy walking into a porn shop.

actually, thats an interesting point, there are numerous websites out there where boffins can send in street view links of funny or interesting picture: people getting pulled over by cops, people fighting, etc. I can especially see the former being quite embarrassing for the driver, their indiscretion is forever available online for others to laugh at.
Tawna at 12:09 AM JST - 22nd December

It might have been worth mentioning the name of the mysterious "group." It is The Campaign Against Surveillance Society and a mention that the spokesman for the group, Yasuhiko Tajima, is a constitutional lawyer and that the group concerns itself with more than google.

So, does Campaign Against Surveillance Society plan to take action against Location View (www.locaview.com), which also provides street level imagery of major Japanese metropolitan areas? While Location View isn't as easily accessible as Google's service, anyone willing to use online translation tools can register, log in and view its images. I did, and I can't read Japanese.
LFRAgain at 02:56 PM JST - 22nd December

There no law against walking down the street and seeing these things with my own eyes. What's the difference that I can do it virtually?

This "Campaign Against a Surveillance Society," a small group to be sure, can't seriously expect people to believe that the view while walking through a neighborhood is privately protected space, can they?
Weasel at 11:02 PM JST - 22nd December

Why not scrap out Earth Google too, since streeview is also a feature on that program too? Google already is willing to remove views of areas that are either privately owned streets and military establishments (but you can still view them from Earth Google). If people are so concerned about their privacy, then stay indoors or within the confines of your backyard, and then no one can complain about your privacy being violated.
Nessie at 11:20 PM JST - 22nd December

It might have been worth mentioning the name of the mysterious "group." It is The Campaign Against Surveillance Society and a mention that the spokesman for the group, Yasuhiko Tajima, is a constitutional lawyer and that the group concerns itself with more than google.

Thanks, Proxy, that's good to know. I wonder what specific legal argument they're using.
kokuryu at 02:53 AM JST - 23rd December

Personally I think the Street View is excellent. There have been many times where I missed something totally and had to rely upon the Street View to find it properly. I think people in Japan are being parnoid for nothing.
ca1ic0cat at 05:51 AM JST - 23rd December

I guess I don't see the point of protesting this. It's not like they are publishing the pictures taken by the cameras installed in your televisions.
zaichik at 05:22 PM JST - 23rd December

These aren't real-time pictures - they're one-off shots. For example, the street view of our house here in NZ was taken months ago, in the middle of winter (I can tell from the mud on the bit where we park our cars). You can't see the registration of the car, and in the shot for our address, you can't even see our house - the views are blocked by a couple of trees in our front garden. In order to find someone you were looking for, you'd have to know exactly where they were at a particular time and hope that the Google pic was taken at the same time. It's certainly not a stalker's friend....
kurisutofu at 06:50 PM JST - 24th December

I think the problem is not only the face of people in the street. If I'm not wrong, when you record a movie (commercial movie) in the street, you need to ask every owner if they agree to let their house being shown on the footage. That's why "lost in the translation" was recorded on the run ... Here, Google use it as a commercial product (even if it is free) so the same laws should be applied.
PepinGalarga at 04:36 AM JST - 25th December

Privacy is something that we in America used to have. I dont blame the Japanese for trying to protect it in this day and age of new toys and gadgets.

They do go overboard with the news broadcasts where i can't see anything on the screen.
Latenights at 09:12 PM JST - 26th December

Japan may have strict legislation for protecting privacy, but it is BS in practice! My Ward Office has twice released my address to groups of elementary school kids (or teachers, I never got a straight answer out of them) whose homework was to interview a foreigner.