Google to blur faces in Street View images

Following privacy complaints, Google is beginning to blur the faces of people captured in photos taken for its Street View service, an Internet mapping program.

Street View was not the first to augment online maps with photos, but the detail and breadth of images on the site unsettled some users when it was launched last year.

Specially equipped vehicles cruised city streets, making panoramic images. The photos revealed people falling off bikes, exiting strip joints, sunbathing — everyday, in-public things but nonetheless, things they might not want preserved for posterity.

Some privacy advocates, including the influential Electronic Frontier Foundation, suggested that Google blur the images of people. That, they said, would not inhibit Street View’s goal of helping people become familiar with the look and feel of a location before they travel there.

Google says it has indeed begun using a facial-recognition algorithm that scans photos for mugs to blur. The changes are happening first in scenes from New York, before slowly expanding to the other 40 cities, including Boston, in Street View.
(AP)