Swiss Contend Google Doesn't Blur Street View

Swiss Contend Google Doesn't Blur Street View

Switzerland's data protection authority said Friday it will sue Google for allegedly failing to obscure faces, license plates and other sensitive images from its Street View photo mapping Internet application.
The Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC), Hanspeter Thuer, had initially given the IT company the green light for Street View. However, the agency came back to Google shortly after its August launch with its concerns, and now plans to take the company to the country's Federal Administrative Court.

"In the Street View IT service, which has been online since mid August 2009, numerous faces and vehicle number plates are not made sufficiently unrecognizable from the point of view of data protection, especially where the persons concerned are shown in sensitive locations, e.g. outside hospitals, prisons or schools," the agency said.