Google's Street View Meets Resistance In France

Ian Lamont writes "Google has begun to scan the streets of Paris as part of its Street View service, but the company may be hindered from publishing them unedited. The reason? French privacy laws. Google may be forced to blur faces or use low-resolution versions of the photographs. The Embassy of France in the US has a page devoted to French privacy laws, that says the laws are needed to 'avoid infringing the individual's right to privacy and right to his or her picture (photograph or drawing), both of them rights of personality.'"

When in Rome...

Or in this case, Paris. The law is the law, and Google need to respect the local laws. They do it in China, with their censored Google, so I can't imagine them putting up too much of a fight against French privacy laws.

Re:When in Rome...

...can't imagine them putting up too much of a fight...

so you think THEY will surrender to FRANCE?!

brain... hurt...

Re:When in Rome...

Get with the program. Ever since they elected Bush's lickspittle Sarkozy as their new president, the old rules no longer apply to the French. France is now one of the most badass military superpowers in the galaxy, and Google had better watch out.

Re:When in Rome...

Forget France and Sarkozy, Google streetview needs to worry about running into the Overreaction Guy [flickr.com] in San Francisco.

Re:When in Rome...

If they are hiring people to drive vehicles outfitted with cameras around Paris, I would assume they have a business presence there. I'd expect them to follow French laws when doing business in France.

Re:When in Rome...

I'd expect them to follow French laws when doing business in France.

Why? The French certainly don't bother.

Re:When in Rome...

If you're in another country, you obey that country's laws. Doesn't matter if you're a U.S.-based company taking 30 zillion pictures to post on the internet or you're a tourist on your honeymoon.

Re:When in Rome...

(Obligatory: You must as american right?)

Perfect! - So when I as a swede set up the new Piratebay in new York I only has to worry about swedish laws? - Grrrrrrreat!

Come on, you follow the laws in the country you're in - it's that easy.

Re:When in Rome...

Why exactly? Google is a U.S. based corporation, right? So if anything, shouldn't the people that should have to worry about laws be Parisians, not Google?

Well, the rhetorical fellating of Google has reached a new height around here.

Ask Yahoo if they need to obey local laws

They lost in the French Nazi auction case [cnn.com], which established the precedent that even big American Internet companies have to abide by national laws. The excuse that the Internet is some sort of separate place, or that national laws have no clout in the Internet Age died right then and there, in 2000.

Re:that may not mean what you think

No here is the item:

2. By taking, recording or transmitting, without his or her consent, the picture of a person who is in a private place.

When you take pictures on the street of somebody in a window of their house that is considered private. Google does that and hence is violating the law.

The whole Street View idea...

I've looked around for information before, but have never found any. Does anyone know how often people actually use the Street View for the purpose for which it was designed (i.e. non-voyeuristic purposes)?

Personally, I just don't see the overwhelming need for it. I've never really needed to see what a road or a street looks like before driving on it. The only case that springs to mind is for odd places way out in remote areas, where there the lay-out may be different... but that's exactly the sort of place that would never get put into the StreetView system anyway.

So, does anyone find StreetView genuinely useful enough to be worth all the privacy hassle?

Re:The whole Street View idea...

It can be very useful for finding the final destination in a trip. A friend gave me a link to his new place using StreetView, with the "camera" pointed directly at which house was his. With this, I knew what to look for when I got into the area (as it was near impossible to see the markings on the houses at night.

StreetView has its purpose, it's really a matter of how follow directions.

Also, I've been using it for house hunting in the city I live in. I'm able to see what kind of homes are in the different neighborhoods around town without driving all over the place. Once I find some neighborhoods that I like I drive there myself just to get a feel for the area in person.

Not resistance, but law!

" Google's Street View Meets Resistance in France"

It is not resistance, it is the french law.

As a French citizen, I find the Slashdot title offensive.

Paris is the capital of a free sovereign country, France, which has its own Constitution and legal system, which is not the US ones!

The title implies that american law should prevail everywhere! No! France is not a US colony.

I am sure that most american (& french) citizens would expect French coorporations (e.g. Thales, Air Liquide, ...) to obey American laws on the American soil (e.g. Washington D.C.)

Why should it be different for Google (an american coorporation) in France?

California has a similar law

California has a similar law, Civil Code section 3344 [findlaw.com]. This covers "publicity rights". Each person's "publicity right" in recognizable images of themself is by law worth at least $750, if used in any manner related to advertising or selling. If you're famous, the price goes up, to cover "actual damages".

So if you're in California and recognizable in Google StreetView, you could put in a claim. It's not worth it unless you're a major celebrity.

The online French Yellow Pages has street photos

The online French Yellow Pages (http://www.pagesjaunes.fr) has a primitive streetview feature. Most of the pictures appear to be taken early in the morning when there are very few pedestrians, but it's still fairly common to see people in the background.

"Providing those details would be inappropriate"

Google Street Maps was not welcome in Australia, too. But the newspaper "The Australian" had an interesting idea: the asked Google for the addresses of the Google managers [news.com.au].

While Google has defended the project, the internet company baulked when The Weekend Australian requested the personal details and addresses of the group's key figures to allow the paper's photographers to take pictures of their homes. "Providing those details would be completely inappropriate," said Google spokesman Rob Shilkin.

Rights of Personality

I like that concept, "Rights of Personality." It cuts to the essence of a disturbing trend in places like the US and the UK. More and more, every minute of one's life is scrutinized by the state, business, marketers, and random individuals. But the next step is the research is being done on various mind-reading technologies. Right now, these manifest themselves as "lie detectors" and DHS-type projects to look for terrorists, smugglers, and other nogoodniks. Also, marketing types want to be able to detect your internal reactions to ads, to fine tune their attacks on yor will. Soon they'll be able to track your eyes to see who you find attractive, then include similar models in ads targeted at you (this could be a fantastic optimization for porn, I admit).

The trend, and the goal, is to be able to read more people, at greater distance. We don't know how far this technology can go, but some of the things already being tested are capable enough to give one pause. If you are not allowed to think unauthorized thoughts (to question the state; to remember a song without paying royalties), do you have a personality? Do you have free will? It seems to me that at that point, consciousness would be a curse.

Gene Wolfe wrote, I believe in Soldier of the Mist, that "A man without a sword is a slave." I would contend that today it's more relevant to say that a man without privacy is a prisoner; a man without private thoughts is a slave.

It's nice to know that some places still maintain the concept of a right to privacy.

Don't trust that

Well, I do live in Paris, and I can tell you this law is not really enforced unless you explicitly ask for it. Several times, photographers (*professional* ones I mean) tried to take a photograph of my baby girl (a cute and smiling one, but I'm not neutral on that topic! ;-), without asking for authorization, of course. I had to ask them to stop that, which usually led to a verbal argument. Google has been caught red-handed. Good. Next time they will hide their cameras and nobody will notice, except for the few usual whistleblowers.

Re:Easily contourné

What exactly is illegal..

Yeah, it's a cool thing to be able to browse the streets of a city in 3D, but honestly, who wants their faces, car plates, etc. published for all to see? Not everybody. And until it's everybody then we should assume nobody except with express consent.

It's a matter of common decency, not just law. I hate it when people talk as though the law is the only thing we should pay any attention to.

Re:Easily contourné

I don't understand this French law thing. Let me see if I can get it straight...

If I'm walking down a public street in Paris, I assume I'm allowed to look at other people, and be looked at by other people. If I have a camera with me I assume I'm allowed to take pictures, as I do not, and no one else, has any expectation of privacy. You're on a public street.

Now if I publish those photos, given that any person viewing the images could have just as well been there at the scene at the time I took the images and seen it for themselves without violating anyone's privacy, I assume that there's no violation of privacy there either.

Thus we find ourselves in Google's situation. So what is the privacy problem here?

If they were to pick a person at random and use that person in advertising in a way that made it seem the person was endorsing something, then that shouldn't really be allowed unless the person actually does endorse the product and agreed to be represented as such. But that's not happening here.

If the person had some reasonable expectation of privacy, such as walking around a gym locker room in the buff, or in a public restroom, or in their own home or on private property not viewable from a public area, that would be different. Doesn't seem like that's happening here either.

Where is the big ethical problem here? I just don't see it.

Re:Easily contourné

Where is the big ethical problem here? I just don't see it.

You don't actually have permission to take photos of any faces in public. It's the same law in other countries. People have to consent to having their picture taken. Of course there is spillage and people unwittingly enter millions of tourist happy-snaps.

But if I take photos with identifiable faces and publish them on my blog or website or whatever, the people who own the faces can claim offense if I didn't ask them first.

Where is the big ethical problem here? I just don't see it.

The big ethical problem is that if there aren't these controls on how your photo/voice/identity is used, then people get exploited.

In many countries, you are not even permitted to photograph the front lawn of someone's private residence, even though it is the 'public face' of his home. Not everybody wants their stuff photographed, thank you very much.

Re:Easily contourné

You're also wrong in the UK, the US, Australia and most other countries I can think of, unless by 'claim offence' you mean they can claim they were offended rather than seek legal remedy. What sources exactly have you based your opinion on?

Here's a few of links explaining the situation in the UK, Australia and US for photography of people in public places :

UK [sirimo.co.uk]
US [krages.com]
Australia [4020.net]

Re:Easily contourné

So if you break US IP law in a country like say, Australia, you can be extradited and shipped for trial/prosecution in the US. But you have no problem with breaking French law by placing the servers inside the US?

IE - USA! USA! USA! We'll do whatever we want, only when it suits us.

Those days are over, mon ami.

Re:Photography in France

You know, people's rights to their image do not only exist in France.
Don't you remember the Australian Virgin mobile fiasco ? They had taken pictures from Flickr under the Creative Common license for their advertising campaign. So far, so good. However, they did not have the consent of the people on the pictures.
Now, the family of the girl on the picture got a little wild and sued both Virgin and Creative Commons. The latter case has been dropped, but I believe the former is still ongoing.