Swiss: Google Street View Must Guarantee Anonymity

(FRANK JORDANS, AP) GENEVA -- A Swiss court has ruled that Google Inc. must guarantee anonymity before publishing faces and license plates captured in Switzerland for the popular street view service.

The Federal Administrative Court largely sided with Switzerland's data protection commissioner who claimed that Google was breaching citizens' right to personal privacy, according to the ruling published Monday.

Google said it was disappointed by the verdict and is considering an appeal to the Swiss supreme court.

The Bern-based court said Google needs to ensure that all faces and vehicle license plates are blurred before uploading pictures to the service that provides panoramic views from various positions along the world's streets.

It also ordered the company obscure other identifying features, such as skin color and clothing, from people photographed in the vicinity of "sensitive establishments," such as women's shelters, retirement homes, prisons, schools, courts and hospitals.

Google's right to pursue its commercial interests does not outweigh Swiss privacy laws, the court said in an explanatory note.

"What is at stake here is ultimately not a blanket prohibition of Google Street View but merely the publication on the Internet of images of individuals only where they have been made unrecognizable or, as the case may be, only where the consent of the individuals in question has been obtained," the court said.

It dismissed Google's argument that if it ensured all photos were unrecognizable, it would have to pass on the cost to users.

Google's global privacy counsel, Peter Fleischer, said the company was "very disappointed" by the ruling.

"Street View has proved to be very useful to millions of people as well as businesses and tourist organizations," he said in a statement. "We'll now take some time to consider what this means for Street View in Switzerland and (consider) our appeal options."

The case has generated enormous interest in the Alpine nation, where Google has one of its biggest offices outside the United States. Hundreds of engineers develop new services for the company in Zurich.

Google has faced similar privacy concerns in many of the 27 countries where the application is available, including the U.S. and Germany. In Israel, officials have expressed worry Street View might be used by terrorists and instructed the company to modify the service.

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Associated Press writer John Heilprin contributed to this report.

Comments

[terry90]

11:15 PM on 04/04/2011

fact-checking please.. Zurich is not the capital of Switzerland, Bern is...

ah yes, good to see in more civilized, advanced countries govt's and courts value citizens' privacy more than corporate interests... I guess the U.S. has a long way to go before they learn this lesson... (but well here in the U.S., where corporate interests bankroll election campaigns, fat chance this will ever happen..) kudos to this court in Switzerland...

[fataggie]

04:52 PM on 04/04/2011

How did there come to be an expectation of privacy on a public street?

[GameGuru59]

08:44 PM on 04/04/2011

Its Switzerland. They play by different rules.

[maxben]

11:49 AM on 04/05/2011

Before, this wouldn't be an issue.
Google's technology made it an issue.
As technology changes, the law must keep up or become useless.

[fataggie]

11:46 PM on 04/05/2011

I'd suggest that there's nothing new about street photography, or the publication of such photographs.

[HighDesertBob]

04:51 PM on 04/04/2011

If there was a more unambiguous example of how our freedoms protect us here in the US than those in other countries, I can't come up with one. As an open society, we are free from government intrusion and limits as to what we can and cannot see.

[Infostream]

03:35 PM on 04/04/2011

Does this mean it is illegal for anyone, private citizens or news agencies to publish photographs of public places without blurring all the faces and license plates?

If I put a photo of my family taken at a tourist spot on Facebook or web page, do I need to blur all the faces of people in the background?

I'm trying to imagine all the news photos from the Egypt protests with all the faces blurred...

What is everyone so insecure about? Guess what, if you go outside - people can SEE you! Dumb ruling.

[maxben]

11:52 AM on 04/05/2011

1. It refers to sensitive places such as women's shelters
2. There was no permission given by those photographed.
3. These photos get published publicly for all to see
4. These photos are being used by a company for commercial uses. Even if its free, Google makes money by ads on the sides of these photos.

[Matt Raven]

02:49 PM on 04/05/2011

If you are standing in a public place, you have given your permission by default. Puh-leeze! How far are we going to take this "right to privacy" BS? Are they going to make it illegal to look at other people? Illegal to glance around you on the bus?

Give it up. Cameras exist. This is not the dark ages. PEOPLE DO NOT HAVE A RIGHT TO PRIVACY IN PUBLIC PLACES!