Google's Street View service under fire in Europe

The head of EU Article 29 Data Protection Group (comprising of data protection officials from EU countries), sent a letter to Google asking to alert residence in advance about the arrival of their Street View camera car.

EU has also requested that Google make some changes to its Street View service. The union wants Google to delete all the images that its service captures after six month instead of one year time period set by the company.

"The Working Party believes that a maximum retention of six months for the un-blurred copies of the images would strike the right balance between the protection of privacy and the ability to eliminate false positives," stated the letter sent to Google by EU, which has a Feb. 11 dateline.

Google’s Street View infringing on people’s privacy?
Google launched its Maps Street View service back in 2007 in San Francisco. The service allows users navigate a 360-degree view of streets, traffic, people and building, by using the pictures taken by Google’s camera cars on the streets.

Google’s Street View service is available in many countries but time and again critics have strongly criticized the service saying that its camera’s infringes privacy of people by peering over fences, hedges and walls.

As per Rob Enderle, an analyst at Enderle Group, "The belief that Google Maps was being used by burglars was widespread in Europe, and it is this that is likely driving the response."

But Google’s fight to keep working on its terms could turn out to be a wild goose chase because other search engines, notably Microsoft have indicated that they will comply with the EU’s six-month rule.

Microsoft said last month that it is in process of introducing changes in Bing's search data retention policies and will hold users data for only six months instead of 18.

Google committed to introduce service in other countries
So far Google has responded to the EU’s past complaints as well about its Street View service but refrained from saying that it’s been targeted by the union.

According to an analyst at Competitive Enterprise Institute, Ryan Radia, "Europe has some of the most aggressive data retention laws on the books for government purposes. ... The United Kingdom is very aggressive in monitoring its people with webcams and cameras on the streets for the purposes of homeland security."

Regardless of all the criticism, Google is committed to introduce Street View service in as many countries as possible. But Google might not be able to dictate terms, given the different cultural view on privacy.