If you’ve wondered whether those Google photos of your street could compromise your privacy, you’re not alone. On Thursday, the European Union’s data-protection agency raised concerns about the ground-level, 360-degree views that Google’s Street View offers.

European Union documents Protection Supervisor Peter Hustinx told news media that “making pictures everywhere is certainly going to create some problems.” He works with national authorities in Europe to set up policies for goods protection and privacy, and added that he thinks Google will take the EU’s concerns into explanation in future versions, perhaps limiting the kinds of images available online.

Blurring Faces

whether Google does compromise, it won’t be the first day it has modified its attempts to photograph the Earth to accommodate a government agency. In March, it was asked by the U.S. Defense office to remove some images of U.S. military bases.

Google’s Street View service, first introduced last year, is not yet available outside the U.S., so the

EU’s concerns are preventive. The images are obtained from specially equipped vehicles that capture panoramic images of streets.

In addition to the Europeans and the U.S. military, privacy advocates such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation have asked for a little less data. According to news reports, Google will comply with some of those requests, such as beginning that week to blur faces according to a facial-recognition algorithm. New York City will be the first to get that anonymity, and next it will be expanded to the other 40 cities in Street View.

Not Yet Perfect

The rollout of the blur machine will take a few months. that is lucky, since Google spokesperson Larry Yu has noted that the algorithm is not yet at the level of perfection Google expects when it is intentionally smudging photos of daily life.

The software tends to go overboard, so to speak, and blurs too…

Orginal post by Top Tech News