Google May Blur Canadian Faces and License Plates 232
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."
Draw attention. (Score:4, Funny)
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Wow! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Wow! (Score:5, Interesting)
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In case it's not legal I guess they need to find a way to solve it, or just not publish any photos from such countries.
Also I where thinking like seconds appart (thought that will not remove cars which stand still), not hours.
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Or they could, shock horror, do the non-evil thing and blur faces and number plates for every country, as opposed to waiting to be forced to think about privacy by a particular country's laws.
Re:Wow! (Score:5, Interesting)
Hopefully without breaking the NDA, I should mention that people at Google looked at me strangely when I suggested that they blur faces on street view. They couldn't understand why the privacy implications of such a service are a problem, as what they are doing is technically legal in the USA. However, when people are posting images of random people picking their noses or something on Digg for millions to gawk at (and such things have appeared even on the Digg front page from time to time), there's a problem - it can ruin someone's reputation for a rather stupid reason if the person is identified. To me, that's evil. To them, fixing it should be the cautious thing to do so they don't get sued (weren't they already involved in a lawsuit for this?), even if it happens to jive with their morals.
I don't know if the "don't be evil" thing is practiced as rigorously by the individual employees there as the company would like you to believe. Creating nifty things seems to win out over most moral considerations; at least, this was the impression I got while I was there. Nifty things are good, but people should think about how their technology is going to be used rather than just what they could make.
Re:Wow! (Score:5, Interesting)
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Many concerts I've been to have had a note on the ticket saying you accept you might be filmed as part of the crowd.
This article [timesonline.co.uk] from the Times says Google would probably be legal in the UK doing the city view thing, except:
FUCK YOU! YOU DAMN COMMIE! GET OUT OF USA! (Score:4, Funny)
VOTE GEORGE W. BUSH in 2008!
Write in the man!
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You'll like it here then. Socialism isn't a curse word, neither is Liberal.
What part of the country are you moving to?
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-40 isn't so bad. You can always put more clothes on. You get arrested trying to do the opposite at +40 though.
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Made more annoying when some bus routs on the island of Montreal are a tad unreliable and you get stuck out side waiting.
That and toplessness.... (Score:5, Funny)
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But if women ever go topless outside of mosquito season, watching them should be rewarding (.Y.)
-b.
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Re:That and toplessness.... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Okay, so no nude hookers, I get it.
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That being said I have yet to see a women topless in public here in Ontario. Unlike London, England
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What makes the experience uncomfortable is the unwanted attention of the lechers. If no-one actually noticed it wouldn't be a problem and you would probably see it more. However the reality is that a whole bunch of guys turn into redneck construction workers when they see a topless woman.
Birth day/month on Manitoba license plates. (Score:2)
birth_date on license plate
which I think they know is wrong, is about that the same as
birth_date + 4 months - 1 day on license pl
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So why is my MPIC renewal in September and my birthday in May?
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Arrghh.. Always preview. That should have read:
Why isn't my MPIC renewal in September if my birthday is in May?
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Maybe you're not who the government thinks you are. Could be problems. Or opportunities.
Privacy Commissioner is completely wrong (Score:4, Interesting)
Federal Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart is just plain wrong on this. Laughably wrong. Obviously wrong. 100%, "no-doubt-about-it" wrong.
As a Canadian, I am *embarrassed* that a company like Google is going to be forced to blur over everyones face or possibly even not extend coverage to Canada because of the wrong opinion of one middle-aged woman.
The operative part is this:
"Canada's privacy law prohibits the commercial use of personal data without permission from the individual
All perfectly reasonable right? Of course, but only when it comes to "personal information." The act envisions protecting things such as your bank accounts, your school and work records, and all those other things that any normal person refers to as "personal information." That's the intention of the law as written.
and here is Jennifer's mistake:
Stoddart says her office "... considers images of individuals that are sufficiently clear to allow an individual to be identified to be personal information within the meaning of [the act]."
This is exactly the same, as the whining we heard from nervous "sensitive" people in the US when street view was introduced there. Many intelligent people pointed out that there was no reason to obscure faces, license plates etc., because they weren't "your" information or "personal information." They were merely the result of what any public person standing on that spot could see at any given time and in fact, just the same as any holiday snap taken by any citizen.
Jennifer Stoddart is one of those "nervous" types of people with a strange idea of what "personal information" is. The intent of the privacy law in Canada was never that a shot of someone standing on a street corner is their "personal information" that's just Jennifer's interpretation, and that is the flaw in the argument. She is just wrong on her opinion that this is personal information.
For instance, if such images *were* personal information, then all street surveillance cameras would be illegal or unconstitutional by the same act (they are not in fact they are all over up here). One could argue that cameras in banks are illegal by the same measure. Certainly the cameras mounted in police cars, and the (very common up here) use of hand held cameras by police to monitor crowds also illegal.
There is nothing wrong with our privacy laws, it's just one person's mistaken interpretation of what constitutes "personal information" that is at fault here. Unfortunately, a lot of people will have to go through a lot of grief because of one STUPID person's "interpretation" of the law.
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I've had it with this country. I've tried so long and fought so hard, but the country's backsliding just gets faster and faster. Plus, one gets to a point in one's life where it becomes tempting to give someplace new a try.
While I know that Canada is far from perfect, it's a lot closer to my values than America ever was, ever has been or ever will be. For instance, the U.S. is looking at a never-ending war in Vietraq. You g
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It's more that he's clamped down on media access to make it more difficult for situations to arise where MPs (or Harper himself) will have to think on their feet. Arguably, poorly-considered on-the-spot remarks have contributed to their unpopularity in the past. Unfortunately the Canadian tradition of the legislature media swarm, in which some
Why not do the same in the U.S.? (Score:5, Interesting)
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p.s. CAN SOMEONE PLEASE SWITCH OFF THAT FUCKING DELAY BETWEEN POSTS!
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I don't know, this seems like a prime task for Amazon's mturk [wikipedia.org]. How much can someone do in an hour? At $1.20/hr, that comes to
p.s. CAN SOMEONE PLEASE SWITCH OFF THAT FUCKING DELAY BETWEEN POSTS!
Sure, once they turn off advertising for subscribers
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Blurry satellite imagery is not new technology or anything. Large parts of the world already have blurryness in Google Earth. It's highly overrated.
Re:Why not do the same in the U.S.? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why not do the same in the U.S.? (Score:4, Insightful)
Everybody knows that the US is one of those countries where you have to vote for either wing of the governing two-wing status-quo-conserving party if you want your vote to count, and where the government has a security police that can take away your rights at the flip of a hat if they decide to consider you a threat.
Why would the US suddenly have strong privacy rights? How would that facilitate the work of the government's security police?
Of course in the US these things are sugar-coated in somewhat different ways than in other countries that have similar arrangements. In the US the terminology is emotionally charged in ways that will appeal specifically to the American temperament. So the government's security police is called Department of Homeland Security, and the suspicions that take away your right will invariably mention Terrorism.
But that's just sugar-coating over the same old ugly mess.
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There are massive advances being made in recognising faces -- i.e. combine Facebook or Flickr with a tagged photo of someone, and you could then find them on the street in New York in the Google picture. That's why people have the right not to be photographed and have their image broadcast.
(Thankfully, I'm in the UK, and the EU and the
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>
No, you're not. Try wearing a face mask and walking into a bank, airport, or school.
That's why "intellectual" is a poor name (Score:2)
Yep, when it's your own intellectual property under threat I guess you tend not to be so cavalier about the whole duplication rights issue.
There's a key difference between rights of privacy and copyrights in published works: You haven't authorized your face to go into public distribution at any time. But the record labels have authorized their works to go into public distribution at one time. Key differences like this are part of why Richard Stallman and other critics don't like to group copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets, and rights of publicity under the umbrella term "intellectual".
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They did that. You can see the photos here [google.com].
Using what filter? (Score:4, Interesting)
If Google does the same you would need to find a photo that is probably of someone you have an image of once (or at worst a few times - hardly a problem when you consider the collaborative effort available) and the set up a un-blurring filter that would work with all their images.
These problems have all been solved - using a cryptographic RNG as a noise source for example - but they require more computing power and so it would be very tempting to save money by taking a short cut.
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Faces: oh, my goodness, faces are a different story. Facial recognition is deeply wired into the human brain and human behavior, one of the first skills an infant learns is whom their parent's faces belong to an
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The theory being put forward is that if the filter is not a 'one way' filter, then it wouldn't be too hard to get the actual original data back again. eg if the filter worked on a 2 x 2 matrix, and it said 'swap the points at 0,0 and 1,1, and the points at 0,1 and 1,0', then all of the original data is still there, just moved around. If you can figure out the translation (eg if you have a copy of the original and the blurred copy) then you can reconstruct it. If, ho
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The example isn't a photo, but I don't think it's inconceivable to apply similar techniques on blurred photographs.
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It is inconceivable to use his method with a photo. He specifically refers to blurring of information that has a limited number of "true" values (ie, text and numbers) and creates a matrix for reconstruction using analysis of blurring patterns based on the potential true values.
Ok for 26 letters, ten numerals and any combination of known structures, but faces? Especially when the blurrin
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Second of all, those digital squares are a bit large; while you could manage to perhaps create a fuzzy, oddly greyish looking bit of genetalia, it would lack any realistic detail.
Yes, but in case of video/film, you have multiple frames, and if something is moving linearly (but not deforming or rotating) in a given direction- or alternately if the camera is panning in the opposite direction- then if the block coordinates are fixed relative to the screen, you should theoretically be able to get higher resolution in the direction of motion using some maths.
For example, in frame 1, block (0,0) is made up from object coordinates (0,0), (1,0), (2,0), (3,0) and block (1,0) from coords (
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You realise that several (Japanese, I think) blurring algorithms are specifically designed to be reversible [vector.co.jp], right?
Properly designed blurring filters cannot be reversed so easily! Alternately, instead of blurring, they could just use black squares [dheera.net] to cover stuff up.
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What about Canadians abroad? (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe Google should adapt their filter software so it blurs the face of anyone with a Canadian flag patched attached to themselves ;-)
Do the CIA get a reverse filter? (Score:2, Interesting)
Why not paste other faces on ? (Score:4, Interesting)
Google should find people who are willing for their faces to be used this way. Using the same face would be kind of disturbing, so a selection of faces would be needed, perhaps to roughly match the face that is being replaced (hair colour, race, sex, ...).
Think of the fun that we could have: a kind of Google powered Where's Wally [thegreatpi...hunt.co.uk] .
There could even be a market for this: budding politicians, wannabe starlets who might pay to have their face become recognised or become familiar.
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http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000585/ [imdb.com]
Canada does America better. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Canada does America better. (Score:5, Insightful)
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I can get behind less government spending but single-issue voting is pretty braindamaged in my opinion.
How? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:How? (Score:5, Funny)
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You poor, poor man.
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> certain nationality.
I know. I just thought it was a better question than "what's with the lousy slashdot headline?"
It does raise the question about what they're going to do about images taken outside of Canada being shown to Canadians, and whether they'd really be breaking the law for showing uncensored pictures of Canadians in Canada to non-Canadians (i.e. does privacy law kick in when the pictures are taken, or when
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A better method than blurring (Score:2)
A better method than blurring, and irreversible, is to substitute someone else's face, scaled to the same size. They could use CmdrTaco's mug shot.
Vacation pictures? (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's up to the person whose privacy has been violated to make a complaint and prosecute though.
The thing that separates
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So what you are saying is that my looking at someone doing something embarrassing (like a peeing drunk) in public is illegal? Or if I turn to my wife and point out the person standing naked in their window? If it's not illegal for me to see and if it's not illegal for me to point it out to others because it's in a public space where you otherwise have no expectation of privacy, why would it be illegal in a photo?
You're right... people don't have an expectation of privacy in a public space. However, if someone decides to discreetly pick their nose and someone else notices they're usually considerate and respect the person's privacy by not pointing it out. On the other hand, if you were to take a picture of that situation and publish it online, that would make you an inconsiderate asshole. It's one thing to not have privacy in a crowd of 20 people. It's another thing to not have privacy in front of millions of p
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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 disc
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The exception, depending on the province, is for commercial use. Google is definitely commercial use. There may be a problem because it's such a massive project as well.
I just want to say (Score:4, Funny)
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Pictures of a Google van operating in Canada. (Score:2)
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But that's not all (Score:4, Funny)
license plates (Score:3, Insightful)
Two companies provided data for street view (Score:3, Informative)
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
Google not covering much still... (Score:2)
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People are money.
Cities are full of people.
The money is in the cities. So are the pictures.
Sorry about that.
Already in Canada -- virtualcity.ca (Score:2)
South-Park-looking canadians! (Score:2)
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