Privacy Implications for OpenStreetView
karp.id.au
Privacy Implications for OpenStreetView
1–10 of 41 posts
Re: Privacy Implications for OpenStreetView
#2Cock-up before conspiracy.
OpenStreetView isn't intended to intrude, it is just naivety on the creators part. It will be solved in some capacity sooner or later, if not for genuine concern for peoples privacy, to avoid negative media attention.
Re: Privacy Implications for OpenStreetView
#3The lack of quality blurring is definitely something to prioritize.
As an aside, OpenStreetView makes me think of the "gargoyles" in Snow Crash. As sensors of all types (but in this instance cameras) get radically cheaper & start to permeate the physical world it's inevitable that things visible from the street will just become less private over time.
Re: Privacy Implications for OpenStreetView
#4Cock-up before conspiracy. OpenStreetView isn't intended to intrude, it is just naivety on the creators part. It will be solved in some capacity sooner or later, if not for genuine concern for peoples privacy, to avoid negative media attention.
I think that's a fair assessment, but still, it's important to raise the issue sooner rather than later.
Re: Privacy Implications for OpenStreetView
#5How do you actually use openstreetview.org? All I could see was a map, no imagery. At first some roads were highlighted in pink but as soon as I zoomed and panned a little bit, the pink lines disappeared...
Re: Privacy Implications for OpenStreetView
#6How do you actually use openstreetview.org? All I could see was a map, no imagery. At first some roads were highlighted in pink but as soon as I zoomed and panned a little bit, the pink lines disappeared...
It's under heavy load at the moment (probably some scaling issues), so responses are a bit slow. You click on the pink lines (and wait).
Re: Privacy Implications for OpenStreetView
#7Shouldn't it be possible to let people do their own blurring for the case where the automatic stuff doesn't work?
There isn't going to be that much to blur if this is all straight ahead views from a car. You don't see many people on the road from lower than car roof level. Those on the sidewalks will be pretty far away. The issue with Google is that the point of view is deliberately made high enough to clear cars in other lanes. So in practice the privacy thing might not a huge issue here unless a significant number of people start mounting cameras on poles.
Re: Privacy Implications for OpenStreetView
#8Reading into the details of these kinds of "privacy implications" (particularly the desire to force publication delay and the force blurring of people or license plates), I'm left thinking that the "implications" are more stark for freedom than they are for privacy.
Are there really privacy implications of any sort in publishing a series of photos of people and cars on a street that aren't already implicated by the knowledge that Google and / or the NSA already have far better photos of the same scenes?
On a more fundamental level: isn't publishing, in real time and high quality, a photo (or series of photos) of a public area essentially for freedom of the press? And doesn't the insertion of a "privacy" claim that threaten that freedom?
I know it's specifically enshrined in the US Constitution, but in an age of ubiquitous cameras and publication media, it's equally important in Australia and around the world, no?
We can opt either to allow each other to share our eyes and ears unto infinity, putting criminals and power brokers on notice that their actions in public are preserved for all time, or we can decide to close and cover them, leaving only criminals and power brokers to see and hear.
Re: Privacy Implications for OpenStreetView
#9Reading into the details of these kinds of "privacy implications" (particularly the desire to force publication delay and the force blurring of people or license plates), I'm left thinking that the "implications" are more stark for freedom than they are for privacy . Are there really privacy implications of any sort in publishing a series of photos of people and cars on a street that aren't already implicated by the…
> We can opt either ... or
Or, we can have a compromise, since the world isn't black and white, and we needn't restrict ourselves to a binary choice.
That's how the European rights work, on life, expression (speech), privacy and so on.
Re: Privacy Implications for OpenStreetView
#10Reading into the details of these kinds of "privacy implications" (particularly the desire to force publication delay and the force blurring of people or license plates), I'm left thinking that the "implications" are more stark for freedom than they are for privacy . Are there really privacy implications of any sort in publishing a series of photos of people and cars on a street that aren't already implicated by the…
It's certainly not an easy issue, but it's important to remember that privacy isn't a black and white issue either.
There is a difference between one photograph of one place at one time and a systematic collection of photographs of many places or over an extended period of time.
There is a difference between a single photograph taken by a private individual for their own use and a photograph taken by a powerful organisation to go into a large database of similar photographs.
There is a difference between a photograph taken for personal or in-house use and a photograph that will be shared with others or openly republished for anyone to see.
In all of these cases, the photograph itself may be the same, but the implications for privacy/anonymity are quite different. Once you start running computer vision algorithms on the photograph and correlating the results with other data sources, the implications go much further still.