After 13 years, Google is renewing its image material for Street View in Germany. At that time there had been a massive wave of opposition because of data protection. What has changed since then.
Explore holiday locations including cafés and restaurants, get to know the district of new places to live and marvel at African national parks or the Arctic: Google Street View offers a three-dimensional view of public streets, buildings and landscapes from more than 100 countries. In Germany, however, the tool has so far only been of limited use. That should change now. Starting tomorrow, Street View cars will be all over the country taking new pictures. They should then be published from mid-July.
Massive resistance 13 years ago in Germany
Google brought its 360 degree map service to Germany in the summer of 2010. At that time, photos from around 20 cities were used that had already been taken in previous years. But while the search engine operator has since regularly updated its images in the rest of Europe, no new material has been added here in 13 years. The reason: Within a few weeks, the group received a large number of complaints.
A Google Street View car drives near the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin in 2008.
Above all, missing information in advance led to 245,000 objections in 2010, explains Thomas Fuchs, who, as the Hamburg representative for data protection and freedom of information, clarifies data protection issues in Germany with Google, in an interview tagesschau.de. At that time, the company “simply drove off with its cars” and took the pictures. “Society was simply not prepared for this – the citizens were overwhelmed to a certain extent,” says Fuchs. Everything was new and many felt restricted in their privacy.
Tatjana Halm from the Bavarian consumer center describes it opposite tagesschau.de similarly: “It’s always a bit difficult when too much is recognizable with people or their vehicles and it can be understood from this who was where and when.” In the worst case, it can be concluded from the context what the person did there – for example in front of a brothel or at the health department. “If you were filmed without noticing it and it’s permanently publicly documented, that’s a loss of sovereignty over personal information,” says the consumer advocate.
negotiations about Privacy Policy running since March
According to the experts, this mixed situation had triggered a political debate that Google could no longer get under control. At the request of the residents, almost a quarter of a million German residential buildings had to be pixelated and Google announced that it no longer wanted to expand the data. As recently as December last year, a spokesman told the “Bild” newspaper: “We currently have no plans to make new footage of German streets available in Street View.”
In the past few months, however, there have always been preliminary talks about how Google Street View can be updated again in compliance with data protection regulations Fox. “It became concrete at the end of March.” Since then, company representatives have presented their plans and negotiations have taken place, says the data protection officer. But why did Google change its mind? Is it because of the competing offer Look Around from Apple, which has also been covering Germany since summer 2022?
“Of course, the world continues to turn and change, so pictures taken between 2008 and 2009 can no longer adequately depict the streets and buildings of today,” writes the Alphabet subsidiary in a blog entry. Over the years, they have “asked more and more people and companies in Germany about the differences between the Street View images and the real world they live in.” In addition, according to Google, 91 percent of the 1,500 respondents who know the service rate it as positive in a survey conducted with Statista.
Google and privacy advocates are not expecting any new ones wave of contradiction
Data expert Fuchs is not expecting a wave of objections on the scale of 2010 this time: “First of all, you now know the product and you know what Google Street View is about.” In addition, digitization has arrived in society much more strongly and the feeling of wanting to be a little more up-to-date in Germany, which is digitally rather backward, is perhaps predominant.
In addition, the information situation is different, explains Fuchs. “The key difference to 2010 is that we were thoroughly informed beforehand.” Google announced in early June that images would be updated in the second half of July. “That means there is a lead time of six weeks in which citizens can object and prevent a photo of their home from being uploaded,” said Fuchs.
“Google is now prepared for the problem and has provided better information about the regulations in advance,” says consumer advocate Halm. The discussion about what is allowed and what is not allowed no longer exists. This is also made much clearer by the European General Data Protection Regulation.
Faces and license plates are automatically pixelated
In terms of data protection, hardly anything changes with the update. The objection can be submitted to Google by e-mail, online form or letter – even online afterwards. Both owners and tenants of houses or apartments can apply. If, for example, only one resident in an apartment building does not want pictures of his windows or the facade on the Internet, Google will also pixelate parts of a building. Old contradictions from 2010 no longer apply.
License plates and people’s faces are automatically made unrecognizable. If the recognizability is nevertheless maintained and people can be identified based on certain characteristics, problems can be reported later and the pixelation can be expanded. “All of this means that updating the images complies with data protection regulations,” says Fuchs.
Pictures partly taken in 2022
When and where exactly the Street View cars will be on the road from tomorrow is still unclear. Routes can “often change due to factors such as weather, driving conditions, duration of recordings, etc.,” writes Google in response to a request from tagesschau.de. Planned Tours However, those who are interested can view it online. According to the company, however, a number of new images were already taken in 2022, which are now also to be supplemented.
“That’s not a problem, because everyone still has the chance to resist uploading,” says Fuchs. However, Halm from the Bavarian consumer advice center points out that it would “certainly have been more transparent” to inform consumers before the first recordings were made. “Then they would at least have had the chance not to be filmed in the first place and would not have to defend themselves if necessary,” says Halm.
The expert recommends using the objection to Google and Apple to people who do not want to see their house published on the Internet or who fear that they have been filmed unknowingly. “In retrospect, they should then check whether this has actually been implemented and readjust otherwise.”