Michael Zimmer.org

Recently we learned that Google’s Street View vehicles gathered people’s private communications on their home WiFi networks as they drove by snapping photos. Initially, Google denied it was collecting or storing any payload data, but later admitted that it had, in fact, collected private information that it should not have, information clearly beyond what any reasonable person who expect a street mapping service to collect.
Google’s explanation was that this privacy invasion was a mistake, and happened because some code inadvertently made its way into the Street View …

The art blog Art Fag City recently published a brilliant and insightful photo essay by Jon Rafman, titled “IMG MGMT: The Nine Eyes of Google Street View”. Through text and Street View images, Rafman critically interrogates the gaze of Street View, exposing the ways in which it frames our view of the world, while at the same time constraining it.

In the post are some of the more compelling Street View images he has found, along with his closing remarks.

Last month I noted that Google’s Street View service was being challenged by German data privacy authorities, who insisted that Google must permanently remove personally-identifying images from their databases (not just blur them in the user interface). Google argued that the original images are necessary to help the system “learn” how to automatically blur better in the future, but Germany feels (and I agree) that privacy must trump. engineering in this case.
Google has conceded, and will now erase identifiable raw data depicting people, property, or cars upon request.
This is a …

Google’s Street View product has been criticized by privacy advocates since its very inception, including various posts on this blog. Two years after its release, Google continues to face challenges over its collection and treatment of potentially personally-identifiable images of people in public spaces.
Most recently, Germany has noted that Google’s (reluctant) blurring of faces and license plates is not enough, demanding that the original images themselves be permanently removed from their databases. Google argues that the original images are necessary to help the system “learn” how to automatically blur better …

Much of my research strives to extend my broader social, political, and ethical explorations of information and communication technologies beyond the halls of academia and into “real-world” design contexts to pragmatically engage with designers and advocate for the value-conscious design of new media and information technologies. Recognizing that the choices engineers and designers make in shaping technical systems are guided by their understandings of the particular values at play, a goal of my research is to increase awareness within technical design communities of the ethical and value implications of technologies …

As I just mentioned, Google recently announced plans to blur or otherwise obscure people’s faces in the Canadian version of the Street View product. After a brief conversation with my colleague Chris Hoofnagle, I’ve come to realize that in their launch of Street View, Google blew a chance to really take a leadership role in protecting user privacy.
Google released Street View to much criticism, given the prevalence of visible and identifiable faces and license plates captured by their fleet of camera-toting cars trolling our streets. To remove yourself from the …

I’ve been incredibly busy lately, and need to quickly catch up on some recent items of note:

Siva Vaidhyanathan has launched a new blog for his forthcoming book, “The Googlization of Everything“…
…while Cory Doctorow provides his fictional vision of Google at its most evil extreme, working with Homeland Security to monitor and track citizens. My favorite passage: “In the grand scheme of things, it hadn’t cost Google much to wire the city with webcams. Especially when measured against the ability to serve ads to people based on where they were sitting.”
Speaking …

Given the obvious privacy concerns with Google’s Street View imaging system (as well as Microsoft’s Windows Live Local Virtual Earth), you would think providers of such services would make it easy for privacy-threatening content to be flagged and removed. While Google did provide a means to flag “unacceptable images” in Street View, I noticed right away how hard it was to figure out how to do that, while others noted the hoops one had to jump through in order to actually get it done.
In a positive move, Google has changed …

There continues to be quite a bit of buzz and concern about Google’s “Street View” enhancement for Google Maps. A couple of comments on recent developments:
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I don’t want to be picky, but given all the (necessary) attention given to the privacy aspects of Street View, I still wonder where everyone was when Microsoft launched basically the same service last year. As I pointed out then, the same privacy and surveillance concerns emerge. Is Microsoft truly that irrelevant now that we’re no longer concerned about their ability to surveil and …

About 6 months ago Microsoft launched their Windows Live Local Virtual Earth service, providing street level images of San Francisco and Seattle. You can drive or walk around the map and view the streets and storefronts…and the people. This detailed level of mapping carries significant concerns about one’s privacy in public, which I pointed out at the time.
Google has now jumped into the foray, offering their own “Street View” enhancement for Google Maps. Pretty slick, but the same concerns persist. If you click on the image to the right, …