Europe Blog
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Navigating Europe's Streets
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
In June we wrote a
blog
about our ongoing Street View conversations with the Article 29 Working Party (the group which brings together representatives from all 27 European Data Protection Authorities).
Just to recap, they had asked that we continue to give advance notice to the public before collecting any images. In addition, they had requested that we set reasonable time limits for keeping copies of the un-blurred images used to create Street View.
As background, we use technology to blur faces and license plates before publishing them on Street View. While our technology is state-of-the-art, it's not perfect and we sometimes mistakenly blur things that are useful or interesting like sign posts, statues, street names, store fronts (
KFC's Colonel Saunders
is probably our most blurred image!) and road signs (like a 'no entry' or 'no right turn' sign, which our technology apparently thinks are faces).
We keep these un-blurred images in our databases so we can build better products, for example by constantly improving our blurring technology so that it obscures more of the things it should and less of the things it shouldn't. We also announced today
another way in which Street View data helps us make our maps better
.
For example, we might need to read a street sign in a Street View image to make sure that the street is properly named on Google Maps. Similarly, we need to know if a street has 'no entry' signs, so that we don't give you bad driving directions.
Starting today, we will permanently blur images on our internal database within one year of their publication on Street View. This means that long term the only copy we keep will be the blurred version. In countries where Street View is already launched the year long retention period will start today.
We think one year strikes a reasonable balance between protecting people's privacy and our ability to reduce mistakes in blurring, as well as use the data we have collected to build better maps products. It's important to remember that European privacy laws allow for the retention of data, so long as it is for reasonable periods of time and the information itself is actually being used.
In addition, where someone specifically requests that we remove an image (even where that particular face or license plate is already blurred in the published version), we'll move those images to the front of the queue, and permanently blur those pictures in our records as quickly as possible. We're also announcing today that over the next few months we'll launch revamped websites in countries where we're driving and/or where Street View is already available. These sites will have additional information about the product, including more detail about where Street View cars are driving--now all we need is good weather so we can show off all the attractions we're photographing in their best light!
Finally, we continue to work on improving our blurring technology. It's good but we think we can make it even better and as we make improvements we'll roll them out globally so that users everywhere get to benefit from them.
Posted by Peter Fleischer, Global Privacy Counsel
British MP David Davis, Google, and Setting the Record Straight
Monday, July 27, 2009
We were surprised and disappointed to open the Times newspaper today and find a vitriolic
column
on Google and our record on privacy, from Conservative Member of Parliament David Davis. Responding to speculation in the Times several weeks ago that the Conservative party was in favour of giving patients the ability to transfer their medical records to private companies, Mr Davis decided to launch an extraordinary attack on Google, riddled with misleading statements. Of course, Mr Davis didn't ask us first for our comments or to check his facts before going to press.
Mr Davis' argument is based on something of a straw man, given that Google Health, our health records product, is only available in the US, and we have no immediate plans to bring it to other countries. But given that he goes on to attack our Street View product as a "high-handed" intrusion on privacy, assert that we do not respect European privacy law, argue we have entered into "an amoral deal with China," and attribute our economic success to "legally unfettered use of personal data", we wanted to set the record straight.
Allegation: Google is "hostile to privacy."
We were the first company in our industry to anonymise information when people conduct searches. We took the US government to court when we were asked to hand over large amounts of data to them. Like all of our products, Street View was built from the ground up to respect user privacy. The imagery is not real time. We automatically blur faces and vehicle number plates, and we make it easy for people with concerns to have their homes removed from Street View if they wish. In the months since Street View launched in the UK, tens of millions of people have found it a useful and interesting tool, whether for exploring a tourist destination, finding a restaurant or checking driving directions.
Allegation: Google claims that European privacy legislation "does not apply to it."
For a company that supposedly ignores European laws, we did not launch Google Street View in the UK until we had the green light from the Information Commissioner! "Google Street View does not contravene the Data Protection Act," said David Evans, the Commissioner's Senior Data Protection Practice Manager, "and, in any case, it is not in the public interest to turn the digital clock back."
Allegation: Google entered an "amoral deal" with China.
As we said
when we launched Google.cn, it wasn't a step we took lightly, but we felt we were doing it for the right reasons - to bring more information to more people. Where Chinese regulations require us to remove sensitive information from our search results we disclose this to users - which is not standard practice in China.
Allegation: Google makes its money from "exploiting its customers' private data for commercial ends."
Google makes the vast majority of its revenue by providing users with free services and serving ads targeted to what the user has searched for or has read. This does not involve selling user data or exposing it in any way. When we launched interest based advertising we did so only after putting users in control of the information collected about them, as we make clear in our
user FAQ.
In addition, we do not use categories defined by
European privacy laws
as "sensitive" such as race, religion, sexual orientation, or health when showing ads.
If managed and used responsibly, the free services Google offers can be of tremendous civic benefit. We’ve developed a tool called “Flu Trends”, which offers an early warning system for flu outbreaks based on the anonymous actions of millions of people searching for symptoms. Relief agencies depend on Google Earth images after natural disasters like tsunamis or hurricanes and Indian farmers leverage our topographical maps to help with flood management.
We're proud of our track record of protecting user privacy. We work hard to make sure our users understand what data we collect and how we use it, because we are committed to transparency and user choice. The important work of education is made more difficult by polemicists who abuse the truth. We are happy to debate our privacy record or policies anytime, but we'd rather that debate was based on fact not fiction.
Peter Fleischer, Google's Global Privacy Counsel
Street View: Exploring Europe's Streets With New Privacy Safeguards
Friday, June 12, 2009
In 2007 we began to look at bringing the highly innovative and very popular Street View to Europe, and I
highlighted
the new technological challenges this would present given different privacy laws and cultural norms. We pre-empted many of the different requirements and concerns and proactively introduced privacy enhancing technologies, namely industry-leading face and license plate blurring, and made it easy to flag inappropriate images for removal. We began a dialogue with the Article 29 Working Party, which brings together representatives from all 27 European Data Protection Authorities. In turn, they have asked us to make a few additional modifications to address local specificities to ensure Street View better aligns to local interpretations of privacy requirements across the whole of Europe.
First, they have asked us to continue to provide advance notice to the public about the project before we start driving in a new country. We already got a head start on this request earlier this year, when we worked closely with the press to announce details of when and where we would be driving in new countries such as Ireland, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Poland, Czech Republic, and Switzerland. As you can probably imagine, it can be tricky at times to say exactly where our cars will be and when; we're affected by lots of things outside our control such as the weather and lighting conditions, we also rely on the local knowledge of our drivers to decide which places it is best to drive when, taking into account traffic conditions and other local factors. Nonetheless, we are committed to working within the Article 29 Working Party's guidelines on this issue.
Second, the Article 29 Working Party has asked that we set a time limit on how long we keep the unblurred copies of panoramas from Street View, in a way that appropriately balances the use of this data for legitimate purposes with the need to deal with any potential concerns from individuals who might feature incidentally on the Street View imagery. To explain the issue here, although the images you see on Street View have faces and car license plates blurred out, we have to collect an original 'unblurred' copy of that image first. We then apply our highly sophisticated blurring technology and we make sure that only the blurred copy is ever made public.
The Article 29 Working Party have, however, asked us to take some additional steps to ensure that we don't keep the original 'unblurred' copy for longer than we need to. This is a challenge, but again one we're committed to meeting not just in Europe but globally. One of the technical challenges at stake with Street View--or any service that uses image detector software --is that the software sometimes makes mistakes, labeling part of the image as containing a face or a license plate when in fact it doesn't. While we like to think we've gotten pretty good at this stuff, we still have lots of these 'false positives'.
Some of these can be pretty funny like the blurred horse shown above, but this also affects the quality of Google Maps and so in turn affects our users - for example, it'd be pretty annoying if you couldn't find the phone number of that little deli across town where you think you might have left your purse, because our software mistook the phone number for a license plate. That's why we're constantly working on ways to improve our technology, and we are constantly training it to detect more of the relevant stuff, while reducing the number of 'false positives' it creates. To do this, though, we need access to the original unblurred copies of the images. Nevertheless, we've communicated to the Article 29 Working Party that we will meet their request that long term we only keep the blurred copy of Street View panoramas, and we will work with them and our engineers to determine the shortest retention period that also allows for legitimate use under EU laws.
It's important for companies operating services across Europe to be able to follow harmonised data protection guidance, and we're grateful to the Article 29 Working Party for their advice and collaboration on Street View. It is this coordinated approach that will best enable the expansion of consumer-facing services and innovative technology across the region. Street View has proven to be extremely popular in the countries in which it has
launched
and with these additional privacy safeguards we plan to bring it to even more countries in the European Union, allowing people to explore their home towns, tourist attractions or cities on the other side of the world. We are already receiving many requests to come drive new areas so that imagery can be used to showcase a town, promote tourism and improve travel planning and we are of course always happy to consider these.
Read about
our latest addition to Street View - tourists and Mickey Mouse fans can now virtually explore the Disneyland parks in Paris.
Posted by Peter Fleischer, Global Privacy Counsel
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