Not-just street view

You may have seen that you can now share your world with Street View. Cool at so many levels, no?

Well, yes, but….I don’t think it is to rain on anyone’s parade or to be too jaundiced or cynical to go “wait, what?”.

• you already know where I am when I am and actually you probably have a good idea of who I’m with, who lives there, what the weather conditions are, the size and shape of the property etc

• now you want me to do even more of your work for you

• you’ll get coverage of all those areas you’re not allowed to go with your cars, for free, without consent, forever - private roads and driveways, gated compounds and communities, secure facilities, back gardens, location and quality of security features, property perimeter characteristics, access points; add-in handheld LIDAR now for your living room from the Apple 12

By the time all of that has been blurred out there won’t be much left of added value but it won’t be blurred out will it? There will be some form of assumed consent of the freeholder, leaseholder, tenant or occupier in some click through licence agreement somewhere and/or buried in the user terms. Maybe some will even give informed consent somehow, to show how many tables in the pub garden or when the rhododendrons bloom?

I dunno, I haven’t looked, have you, will you? Will Google be able to identify the impacted people (probably) and ask them for permission (probably not). Volunteered and crowd sourced geographic information has an established place and value. Geo-AR has a proven role in gaming, directions/navigation, tourism, blue lights and more in “tell me more about the location I’m looking at”.

Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

Is this use of this capability an acceptable trade-off.

Is this the next level of citizen surveillance? And what comes next? Oversight anyone?