Threat Level recently ran a story about Kevin Bankston, the EFF attorney who decided to test the take-down procedure for privacy-infringing photos within Google’s Street View. Initially, Google required a wealth of information before removing the photo, but they changed their policy, requiring only your name and the location the image was taken. Kevin submitted the information, and the photo was promptly taken down.
If you’ve found an image of yourself cruising around town when you were supposed to be at home with a fever, here’s what you do:
- View the privacy-infringing image in Street View
- Click the “Street View Help” link
- Click the “report inappropriate image” link and fill out the details
Presumably, once you’ve done this, Google will contact you via email and you’ll have to reply with your name and a confirmation that you’re the person in the image.
Here’s the rub, though: if someone else already caught you playing hooky, there’s no point in removing the image anymore. Effectively, you’ll need to find any compromising images before anyone else does.
There’s also a second problem. You may need to report more than one image. Kevin may have had his reported image removed from the database, but I found him again just up the street.
Want Off Street View? Details and discussion at Threat Level – Link
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