9:00am Friday 12th March 2010
THE extension of Google’s street-level internet imaging technology to cover most of the UK, including Worcester, is provoking heated debate among our readers.
The Street View service now offers 360-degree pictures of 95 per cent of the country.
Opinion is split among our website readers between those who see Street View as nothing more than the latest cool internet tool and those who fear it has the potential for gross invasion of privacy.
We tend to side with the latter view.
While the service, created by cars fitted with panoramic camera equipment, has a certain novelty factor there is a darker side to Street View.
And while Google takes steps to blur faces and car number plates, web users can in some cases see directly into people’s homes.
It could be argued the mapping tool is a burglar’s paradise.
Those in favour of Street View will say criminals can find out details and see images of homes from a variety of sources.
But we just fear this new technology is yet another example of our lives being taped and recorded.
The way in which our every move – even in the apparent privacy of our own homes – is caught on camera borders on Orwellian.
We also struggle to understand the excitement of being able to see your home or street on the internet. Surely we have all seen them before?
To want to see other’s homes in the kind of detail offered by Google strikes us as nothing short of voyeurism.
• To read yesterday's discussion about this matter see our previous story here.
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