Naked Street View
Tuesday, 24th March 2009 by Alex Turnbull
Warning: This post contains partial nudity and other images that you may not deem suitable for the workplace or for children.
When we first posted our notorious Topless Sunbather here on Google Sightseeing back in September 2006, half the world seemed to be appalled that a person's privacy should be invaded in such a way and then posted on the Internet, and the other half wanted higher resolution images.
Evaluating the situation again nearly 3 years later, it seems that only half the people got what they wanted.
When Google launched their controversial Street View service in the US, we saw all sort of things that the press were appalled at; including our own post of the Google Street Fight that went on to become one of the best known Street View sightings. Perhaps because of the way US culture operates, we saw violence in the streets - but sexually explicit images never appeared within the US Street View images to any great extent.
On our Google Sightseeing Twitter page we've been posting Street View sights for nearly a year now, and we've seen the occasional poster or painting showing partially clothed women, but the inevitable Topless Street View Sunbather never materialised... that is until last week's launch of Street View in the UK and the Netherlands, which also brought updates to several European countries that already had partial coverage.
Google anticipated some of this of course; they chose to skirt around the edges of Amsterdam's Red Light District rather than have to remove all of the images later. Of course they couldn't avoid them all, and they did inadvertently capture several images of prostitutes sitting in their windows. In Groningen one woman was even seen showing off an extensive range of sex toys. Although these images have all now been removed, none of them showed any nudity to speak of.
In contrast to the Dutch prostitution system, in Italy the prostitutes can often be seen on Google Street View sitting in their folding chairs while awaiting some passing trade. What doesn't seem to be so common however, is for them to be sitting with their breasts entirely exposed.
So there we have it. Unlike with pixellated aerial photos, there's no doubting what we can see here - this image clearly shows a woman's naked breasts on Google's Street View service, and at time of writing it remains visible within the Google Maps imagery1. In fact there are a number of women with their breasts exposed in the Italian images.
Here in Europe it's perfectly acceptable for a woman to wear nothing but a thong when she visits the beach, so it's hardly surprising that the Street View car captured the following images when driving through Lazio (again, these images are both still available on Google at time of writing).
Google Street View has been getting a lot of grief from the UK's papers in the last few days, most of which has been blatant scaremongering. There's really nothing wrong with there being a picture of your house on the internet - it presents no increased risk to your security or privacy. Just like Google's satellite images, the community-positive local and global benefits2 of Street View will outweigh the unfounded, hypothetical fears concocted by newspapers with column inches to fill.
Seeing inappropriate images is another matter. In truth nobody expects to find breasts on their mapping service, despite the differing attitudes of people of different nationalities. While there are a small number of images that inadvertently appeared on Street View which should be removed3 - if it turns out that these woman don’t have a problem with letting the world see their breasts, then should Google remove their image at the request of somebody else?
On a related note, I wonder if this image of a semi-naked Glaswegian enjoying the summer sun will be removed?
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I suspect most Italians aren't in the least bit offended by seeing a woman's bare breasts, and so therefore haven't asked for the image to be removed. I guess we'll see how long it lasts now that I've posted it here though... ↩︎
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Such as navigation, tourism, house buying, and a plethora of other uses that haven't even been thought of yet. ↩︎
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We ourselves took the decision not to post a link to an image of a partially naked child, which has since rightfully been removed. ↩︎
About the author
Alex has decided that his title will be Senior Vice President of Stuff.
Frankly, the only people who should be able to have their images removed are the actual subjects of the images.
The ironic thing is that the newspapers made a big deal about all these people that had their privacy supposedly invaded by having their images on Googlemaps… And then proceeded to print those images and expose to the world what the images were!! So what were previously hidden gems on Googlemap turned out to be the very subjects of the story they were complaining about!!
I find it ironic and ever so slightly depressing that the British have allowed themselves to become the most monitored country in the world and yet when a truly useful and essentially benign bit of modernity appears we all* wet ourselves with worry.
*when i say ‘all’ i mean the editors of various newspapers, a few of their readers and a couple of other people with justifiable privacy claims.
Street view (and seeing a few boobies here and there) is the least of our worries me thinks.
I have to say my opinions of Street View in general have improved over the year or so it’s been spreading in size, and a number of really useful applications are undoubtably open for even further development.
But as usual, most of the media attention is around things such as this GSS post, and while a habitual user of all tings GSS will see Naked Street View in the general perspective of this site over the years, with the current media attention, I guess it may just pour petrol on the flames – might this be a good time to pick up on something really stunning and new and useful about SV rather than nudity, and bike crashes and Where’s Wally?
Once people get used to the idea, we’ll be able to supplement our regular posts here on GSS with Street View links. Which is officially a “Good Thing”!
I don’t know about the UK, but in the U.S. there would be senate hearings over this, Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman would be behind a bank of microphones talking about how outraged they are. I’m surprise Jack Thompson hasn’t said anything, although he seems to limit himself to going after video game companies, and not so much after he Florida disbarred him.
We have some crazy idiots over here! Most people who ARE worried seem to have problems with the facial blurring and numberplate blurring system. At times, it hasn’t worked all that well, it’s true. But to be honest, I’d be really excited to see my face on Google Street View! I found one of my church pastors, but he’s not obvious except to someone who already knows him.
On a related point try this courtesy of Auntie Beeb: http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/newsbeat/newsid_7961000/7961224.stm
On Twitter, Keir Clarke found the location of the house with the giant willy drawn on it, but unfortunately it’s not visible… yet!
https://www.googlesightseeing.com/maps?p=&c=&t=h&hl=en&ll=51.378911,-1.455965&z=19
In the meantime, we’ve posted several giant knob jobs in the past…
https://www.googlesightseeing.com/2006/12/14/pen-15-club/
https://www.googlesightseeing.com/2007/08/24/more-puerile-roof-art/
https://www.googlesightseeing.com/2007/12/07/even-more-puerile-artwork/
I have no problems with topless sunbathers but that semi-naked Glaswegian is really too much!
Glad to see that they’ve got the knee blurring software working OK!
RE: Glawegian: a) not particularly sunny day (Or is that the best you get in Scotland…) b) why strip down to boxers, but leave on socks and running shoes? Quick getaway?
Yes, that’s about as sunny as it ever gets here in Scotland!
“Perhaps because of the way US culture operates, we saw violence in the streets…”
What complete and utter bullshit.
The chance of someone being violently attacked in London are much higher than in New York.
Sorry if my sentence was misleading Parabellum, I was implying that American culture has less tolerance for sex than it does for violence, not that violence is any more frequent in the US.
Would you like me to make that clearer in my post?
Murders per capita in the US 0.0445638 per 1,000 people.
Murders per capita in the UK 0.0140633 per 1,000 people
Source http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita
Nuff said.
No, not “nuff said.” There are a LOT more violent crimes out there than just murders. If you’re going to post the statistics, post the right ones.
I think it’s a fun idea to be caught in the buff by a satellite or even a passing photo car. You should tell us how we can organize more voluntary nudity. As we know thousands have turned out for nude posing for photographer, Spencer Tunick. So how do we get our “Tunick” on?
We have some crazy idiots over here .. thank you
You’re right that the U.S. has a higher tolerance for violence than nudity — at least in movies, web sites, magazines and video games.
As to the “privacy” issue, I call “bullshit” on that one. The Google cars never photographed anything that couldn’t be seen from a public right-of-way.