StreetViewPrivacy
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Swiss court eases up on Street View privacy concerns, Google says it's pleased with the ruling
It's no secret Google's been involved in a few privacy-related kerfuffles around the globe, but some would say those are just the burdens attached to being one of the big-guns in the industry. Still, Big G can go home to Mountain View a happy camper today, as the Swiss Federal Tribunal has decided to ease up on the company's usage of its Street View technology in the country. Per the ruling, however, Google will have to make adjustments to its viewing methods, things like making it easier for folks to manually blur images available on Street View, and full anonymity around hospitals, schools, prisons and courts. Naturally, Google says it's quite pleased with the outcome and that it plans to "look at the ruling closely, discuss it with the federal data protection commissioner and examine what options are available."
Graduate student erases pedestrians from Google Street View
We love Google, oh yes we do, but there's no question the company could use some brownie points when it comes to privacy. That's not to say Mountain View doesn't try -- the firm does blur license plates and faces in Street View when it's not unintentionally snooping our WiFi. However, a UCSD graduate student has a more thorough idea: simply make the pedestrians disappear entirely. Arturo Flores' algorithm does just that, determining what to erase and what to keep using two adjacent frames. Because Google's roaming cameras end up taking images of the same subject from multiple angles, the program can grab bits of the background (in this case, the sidewalk, lawn and building) from either side, then layer them over the pedestrian in the foreground to hide him from view. It doesn't yet work on persons who are walking the same direction as the camera, or when there are many in the frame, but these obstacles can be surmounted at a later date. Here's hoping Google's PR team gives Arturo a buzz, so we can finally enjoy architecture without all those pesky humans in the way.
