Senator Charles Schumer asks Apple to consider privacy with new Maps
Apple and Google are rushing to bring 3D aerial views to their respective mapping solutions. While many view this as a good thing, some people like Senator Charles Schumer of New York are concerned about privacy and security issues that arise when people are photographed from the sky without their consent.
As reported by MacObserver, Schumer sent an open letter to both Google and Apple asking them to notify residents before a planned flyover by their jets. The senator is uneasy with aerial high-resolution photography that potentially could capture private moments of people in their backyards. He writes,
People on Long Island or in Buffalo have a reasonable expectation of privacy when they decide to have a barbeque on their back deck and would prefer to retain the option of deciding whether they should be photographed on their property. They should not fear that your planes will be overhead taking detailed pictures of their private events.
Besides notifying residents of a flyover, Schumer also asked the companies to blur images of people, allow people to opt-out from having their property shown online and to work with law enforcement and local governments to make sure sensitive infrastructure details are removed from the maps.
