owned? lol

...a bit of a bimmer

I'm sorry - that was such an obvious title but it had to be done. The story sort-of leads us to all the debate about ID cards, The old bollocks about "if you have nothing to hide then you have no reason not to have an ID card", which has been phrased far more succinctly in the past sort-of fits in here. Yes, okay, she was not identifiable from that shot - at least by a stranger - but what if this was at the end of an office party and she was recognised by her boss? Okay - her activity was a little anti-social or unfortunate but - hey - what if it led to a criminal conviction? I could imagine Judge Dredd turning up there.

So - while I applaud Google for scrubbing the image (and gaining some PR in the meantime - after all, they didn't have to tell anybody about this, did they?), doesn't it worry you about how much is actually being recorded from sources that don't necessarily have to follow all the applicable privacy laws?

Does google have software to automaticly blur people faces or does someone go in and blur the by hand?

If by hand who thought that a picture of a woman pissing behind a car would still be ok with the face blurred?

Odd

-J

This is absolutly cracking end to the year, Google streetview becomes Google peepview :)

What makes you think her face was deliberately pixellated out?

It looks to me like a side effect of obscuring the adjacent number-plate.

You can still see the watermark in the next image, can they clear that up as well?

looks to me like the auto blur is for the car number plate and not the face

I'm guessing the face blurring was accidental, it looks like the number plate of the car was the target.

Go icon because, well, she did!

...finding oddities in the streets of the world...

@EvilJason no, they definitely use an algo for blurring number plates, faces etc

It's pretty clear the face is only blured because of the proximity of the numberplate.

...No NSFW flag?

It's automatic, google takes rather a lot of pictures to go through them manually one-by-one.

http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2008/05/street-view-revisits-manhattan.html

It also protects horses and hub-caps as well.

Similair interesting technology for CCTV http://inhardfocus.com/2008/05/more-cool-privacy-tech.html

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article2251280.ece

Check 17 and 10. ;)

What privacy, the woman was taking a piss in public, she wasn't exactly being private about it.

If they took a pic while she was on her loo at home then by all means let the dog s of privacy loose.

I think if the street had been in England, Google would have been guilty of a criminal offence. OTOH so would the woman. BUT... it would require the woman to complain to Plod about Google. And it would require Google to complain to Plod about the woman, as we can assume there was no-one else in her vicinity who could (or possibly would) have a genuine complaint. (Of course, as Whacky Jacqui probably believes, the concept of a female exhibitionist is quite absurd).

If this happened in the US the woman would sue Google for invasion of privacy, the car owner would sue her for urine-based wheel damage, the streetcleaner would sue for having to deal with her piss, then she'd sue The Reg for showing her arse to the IT world.

'The outrage prompts El Mundo to ask: "Does Street View invade the privacy of those it photographs?"'

Who urinates in the street and expects privacy?!

Kx

Stuff that. 14's a bit of an inconvenience ;)

Boy that pisses me off...

If so, the google is spreading child p*rn and we are all in trouble.

AC Black copter.....

¡Española tenía que ser! >:(

When in public, regardless of the activity being performed, an individual does NOT have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Period.

Where is this world going, when one can't even have the god-given privacy of pissing on the street between parked cars in broad daylight anymore... Stop the world, I want out!

not sure, but as urinating in public is now a sex crime anyway nowadays it probably doesn't make much of a difference

The question El Mundo needs to ask is should anyone expect privacy on a public street? The person in the photo may be urinating or picking up a spilled drink (we can hope..). Either way, do you expect nobody to see you on a public street? Just curious. I bet their story would change if the lady had been mugged...

I wonder which head they cut off?

Bit harsh either way.

I have an awful feeling that it actually thought that was her face...

"Who urinates in the street and expects privacy?!

Well, if I'm caught short between the15th and 16th pub on a Friday night I will definitely seek for some privacy before pointing percy at the tarmac....

With the purv checkers on duty. Have a care for folks who have to work in environs where they get seriously bent by nude and/or suggestive pictures

Paris, 'cos her piccys are never safe.

You should have seen the images from "Calle de Feceo"

When she street-weed she hid down behind the car, so, yes, she wanted a certain level of privacy.

14: Which head do they remove?

17: Is the policeman obliged to take it off?

8: I better not go to Kentucky then. [Six *feet* did he say, oh that's all right then.]

What's a bit of post xmas-party crotch-lemonade eh?

Seems like a lot of piss and wind to me!

So who else has moved down the street twice, then zoomed in to the back of the blue car, to see the NON blur'd face??

That is gross.

You DIDN'T have an expectation of privacy because when the laws were made there was no such thing as google street view. No such thing as a person taking your photo and being able to humiliate you in front of millions of people in a matter of days.

If a tv channel did that, you would be able to sue them. What for? Invasion of privacy for one.

No expectation of privacy also went with the expectation that your activities were limited to the..12 people? you passed on the street. If they stopped to take a photo it would be fairly obvious what was going on, and fairly easy to dodge it or ask what your photo would be used for. At most, the person would show it to a dozen family members then it would fester in a drawer forever.

If they somehow happened to be taking the photo to publish in a magazine they would generally need the persons permission. Specifically if the photo was for profit. Even if this all this happened, it would be extremely rare. So there were no need for strict photography laws.

Not to mention the fact that almost every person on the street is now walking around with a camera and in some cases video camera in their pocket (cameraphone). Not to mention the fact that digital cameras used to be almost unheard of and now you can pick one up for the cost of an old camera, plus film and processing.

Are you REALLY trying to say that nothing has changed and the laws don't need to be tightened/changed in ANY way?

If you are, you are probably selfish person who enjoys seeing others exploited and is not using their full brain capacity, not to mention has no idea what logic or context is and thinks in black and white, oh and has a philosophy of "if it doesn't affect me, I don't care" and the closely related "it'll never happen to me". (Until it does.)

You can see her arse on Google Earth.

Where else in the US can you find regular and ongoing street defecation but in the Google's own back yard.

Considering location of her transgression I really wonder how this could be invading her privacy. SHE WAS DOING IT IN PUBLIC. Maybe Google was invading her publicy.

Maybe it's unrealistic to expect privacy if you're pissing in a public street, but I really hope we haven't reached an age where we should expect to be recorded all the time. That's pretty horrible. Does that mean someone can film me if I'm outside and do whatever they like with the images? She probably thought she MIGHT be seen by someone on the street, not have her picture shown all around the internet.

I was under the impression that we were already recorded all the time. Isn't the problem that CCTV is looking at you just about everywhere ? That you can't even be walking down the road, have a quick glance around, and then on seeing no one, scratch your arse or adjust your tackle without it getting caught and available for someone's entertainment ?

Some relevance to this article, surely ?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/03/street_view_territory_marking/

Paris, because she must have done this a few times herself. Probably.

Surely this is Just Paula Radcliffe on holiday? :-D

Lucky for Google, there's not a Spanish Sherriff to make up the law as he went along.

This is a great example of the "hacker" mentality at work:

"All I did was take the picture and post it. It is not my fault how it turned out. Maybe I'll take some more pictures and laugh about it to my buddies."

My point is that whoever took the pictures does have a responsibility to make sure they are fit for their purpose. When a picture of my house showed up as more fuel for Google's bottom line there was fortunately nothing embarrassing therein. Had some sick creep done it after the hurricane went through things might well have been different.

Are all the people here who are complaining about Google taking pictures of everything that is in public the same lot of people who complain every time the police stop someone taking photos of things?

Cant have it both ways. You have to choose freedom of information or not...

Personally I'd kinda like it if people who were pissing all over the place to have a bit of a talking to...

They clearly haven't removed the image...

http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/8238/googleearthfb7.gif

Zoom in a couple of times and you can clearly see the woman

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=calle+Cefeo+madrid&sll=37.09024,-95.712891&sspn=38.365962,64.072266&ie=UTF8&g=calle+Cefeo+madrid&layer=c&cbll=40.39909,-3.719071&panoid=Giq7Zpjwx2TM0FCvsTFQhA&cbp=12,73.59643760668116,,2,5.014018949827062&ll=40.399166,-3.718915&spn=0.006896,0.013819&z=16&iwloc=addr