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Now, I do photography on the side, and I subscribe to a couple of U.K. based magazines that talk about digital cameras/photography. From time to time in those magazines, they do articles about U.K. photographers who have conflicts or confrontations with not only law enforcement, but also citizens who take offense to people taking photos of their homes. It seems the Broughton folks are among those who were very upset at this prospect from Google at least.
I know that here in the U.S., you can legally take a photo of a private home from the street or sidewalk (if there is one), and that's considered "public property". The home owner cannot stop you unless you actually step onto their property (yard, driveway, etc). I would of course ask permission first regardless, but still, by law, that's how you can do it here.
After having read this article I was curious if the same laws apply in the U.K., or are they written in such a way that simply pointing a camera toward someone's home is considered an invasion of personal property?
I think the protest of this is not so much about having their homes photographed as it is having their homes photographed for publication in connection with their address.
But if google street view broke any laws in the UK, it would not have already launch over here.
Well, one thing is, Google street view doesn't show live cams - in some cases (at least here in the States), the photos are as much as 2 to 2.5 years old. So it's not like people can scope out your home "live" to see when you are or are not home.
I think the thing that saves Google's butt in the courts (anywhere) is the fact that they do offer that "opt-out" option on the site. All you have to do is fill it out and very quickly they blank out your photo on Google Earth so it's no longer visible. If they didn't offer that option I guess there would be some leeway for the home owners, but since the opt-out option is offered and they respond to it quickly, that's a legal out for them.
Another thing is Google Earth and Street View are not all that accurate. For both my current residence in the U.S. and my previous residence in Scotland, they are off by several houses.
You cannot get my previous residence on Street View, and the Google Earth picture was taken at least 7-8 years ago. The reason I know this, is it still shows an out building that I tore down 7-8 years ago.
I think the thing that saves Google's butt in the courts (anywhere) is the fact that they do offer that "opt-out" option on the site. All you have to do is fill it out and very quickly they blank out your photo on Google Earth so it's no longer visible. If they didn't offer that option I guess there would be some leeway for the home owners, but since the opt-out option is offered and they respond to it quickly, that's a legal out for them.
I'll have to tell my friend - she was caught on google street view leaving her house and is not happy about it, lol.
I thought that London was the only available British town so far? Anyway, whats the difference between streetview, and Sat images in terms of privacy?
Nope, most major cities in the UK were added as well. I know Manchester/Salford is available because that's how I found my friend leaving her house, lol. And I know Edinburgh is available because I'm going there in August so I was checking out what the area our hotel is in looked like. I haven't checked any other places though.
When you say sat images, do you mean Google Earth where you get satellite images from a birds eye view? Obviously the main difference is that the sat images are only from above, like I say, a birds eye view. You can't really see what someone's home looks like. Street view is a pretty detailed view of people's homes. I personally don't really have a problem with it though.
I'll have to tell my friend - she was caught on google street view leaving her house and is not happy about it, lol.
That's what happened to my sister's husband.
I looked up their address in a suburban area of Charleston, West Virginia (a smaller town area), and saw where the Google car had driven by when what I THOUGHT was a grey-haired old man was pushing a wheel barrow through their yard hauling bricks.
I thought, "Why would they make an old man like that do that kind of work??" So I called my sister and took a screen shot of it and emailed it to her. Well... it's been a few years since I've been home for a visit. That wasn't an "old man" doing the work - it was my BROTHER-IN-LAW!
OOPS.
So, I'd worry less about the homes being caught on Google as opposed to MYSELF being caught on it looking funky. LOL
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