European privacy laws are very strict, as are UK laws in regards to things like security cams. Citizens can even have the windows of their houses blurred out automatically when law enforcement video cameras happen to pan towards their house. Google set up a system to handle complaints, and also had agreed to use a system to automatically blur faces, that would work with few misses, which is apparently not the case.

As I have discussed before, Google streetviews has captured some embarrassing pictures in the past. But US privacy laws and European laws are not the same. The US law pretty much is open to anything the eye can see from public lands. European law sort of works in reverse, almost requiring permission before an image can be used. It creates a problem where the good of Google’s service (being able to see where you are going on a nice visual map, example) runs into privacy concerns (such as the man walking out of the sex shop, or the married couple having a snog on a street corner). It is an interesting debate, where privacy meets the public eye, and if Google has the rights to be that public eye.

More of the story here from BBC.