Google May Blur Canadian Faces and License Plates

KingK writes "Reuters reports that Google is considering a Canadian launch of its Street View map feature, which offers street-level close-ups of city centers. But the company said it would probably blur people's faces and vehicle license plates to respect tougher Canadian privacy laws."

Two companies provided data for street view

[waterford0069]

What is not pointed out very often is that there were two companies that provided the initial data for street view. One did San Francisco (where all the funny shots of identifiable people are seen). The other company has done all the other cities so far.

That second company has dropped the resolution down so far that you can't recognise the people unless they are standing on the roof of the camera-car AND has taken their data set and scrubbed it of images that easily identify other people and vehicles where they have been close enough to recognise.

This second company is the one that is providing the data to Google in Canada and 99% of the US. Check out any city BUT San Francisco on Street View.

This is a NON-Story

Re:That and toplessness....

[clarkcox3]

It's also legal in many American cities; people just tend to assume that toplessness is illegal. Take, for instance, New York city:

The Court of Appeals of New York ruled in 1992 that exposure of a bare female breast violates this law only when it takes place in a commercial context.

Re:Vacation pictures?

[Scrameustache]

So my vacation pictures from our visit to Canada that I posted on my web site are somehow illegal?

Vacation pictures are not illegal because they are information collected by individuals for non-commercial uses:

Limit
(2) This Part does not apply to

(a) any government institution to which the Privacy Act applies;

(b) any individual in respect of personal information that the individual collects, uses or discloses for personal or domestic purposes and does not collect, use or disclose for any other purpose; [justice.gc.ca] or

(c) any organization in respect of personal information that the organization collects, uses or discloses for journalistic, artistic or literary purposes and does not collect, use or disclose for any other purpose.

There's also exceptions for organizations that act for the good of the individuals or the whole, artistic uses, journalistic uses, it's a pretty well drafted law, IMHO.