back to article El Reg Street View snappers caught on camera

It's been live for less than a week, but Google's Street View has already got the press and privacy outfits in a bit of a tizz over the possible implications of having the UK's highways and byways, and indeed the citizens unfortunate enough to have been walking Blighty's leafy boulevards when the Orwellian Opel came a-calling, …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Barry
    Thumb Up

    But, the privacy!!?!?!

    You didn't blur the number plate / drivers face?!? Ban this sick filth. Think of the children. And some other Daily Mailesque stuff.

  2. fran
    Thumb Up

    Love it

    Nothing more to add really

  3. This post has been deleted by its author

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    It is a pity that

    None of the pictures shown here didn't include

    1) A Policeman

    2) A member of the Armed Forces

    3) A member of the Security Services (MI5 etc)

    Then the operators of google would no doubt be taken hotfoot to the UK version of Guantanamo Bay (aka Belmarsh, SE London)

    as they would have clearly taken pictures that could be of benefit to Terrorists and such pictures have been made illegal by our esteemed NuLab Governement with El Gordo firmly at the helm.

    Mines the one with the one way ticket to someplace very far away from this police state we now live in

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Reflecto-Google

    Here's a better reflective self-shot of one of the cars. Disappointing to see no-one coming out of the knocking shop...

    http://maps.google.co.uk/?ie=UTF8&ll=51.45291,-2.59861&spn=0,359.977169&z=16&layer=c&cbll=51.453239,-2.59943&panoid=bCsQh3d74Cm04wbbncaKBA&cbp=12,18.381746290605605,,0,16.334586466165412

  6. Ian
    Thumb Up

    Hello everyone

    I WILL DESTROY YOU!

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The best bit is...

    Because the images are blurred, they don't know who the snappers are.

    What? They keep unblurred originals? they would be sneaky and un-British!

  8. Ian Brown

    Double team

    Bressenden Place London has some car on car action, two street view cars take it in turns photographing each other.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    I'm suprised that here in the States

    I'm suprised that here in the States that no one has started a hunting club to go after the google street view cars. On the other hand, we are a very civil society. We have the world's largest financial system meltdown with no real public response, as contrast to, say, the French. They riot in the streets every time a croissant gets burned.

  10. Jeremy
    Happy

    Finally

    I love the way the Googlemobile's Google logo has been blurred out

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    How does this work?

    http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Portland+House,+Bressenden+Pl,+Westminster,+London+SW1E,+UK&sll=51.497736,-0.1419&sspn=0,359.98881&ie=UTF8&ll=51.497362,-0.141964&spn=0,359.910479&z=14&layer=c&cbll=51.497226,-0.141956&panoid=cgCcQesh3KTxQNKBtiifZA&cbp=12,10.763777649760888,,0,10.695110258868633

    This is from outside our office which is the skyscraper to the right. Again the google car taking photos of itself a second earlier? Surely this breach of the space time continuum can have worse impacts to the universe than the LHC?!

    Chimp

  12. Ian Ferguson
    Happy

    Blurring

    I love the way the Google logo has been blurred out on the last photo. Does the Google consciousness recognise this as a face?

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It just goes to show...

    ...you can't be too careful.

  14. MnM
    Thumb Up

    thank you El Reg

    You saved us all!

    Now if you could just sort out IE standards compliance

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Are they Opel Fruits?

    I'll get my coat.

    Anonymous for safety

  16. Simon Elliott
    Boffin

    Could this be like Eddie Stobart spotting?

    We need a website with a pic of each unique google streetview car and where it has been spotted.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    @Ian Ferguson

    >"Does the Google consciousness recognise this as a face?"

    Nope, a number plate.

    Round my way, the facial-recognition algorithm has been busy blurring out hubcaps on people's cars!

  18. Ross Fleming
    Alert

    @Ian F and Jeremy

    The blurring of the Google logo has clearly occurred because the Google datacentre considers itself a person - it has become self-aware people!! Head for the hills!!

  19. Sadie
    Black Helicopters

    One on the M1

    http://maps.google.co.uk/?ie=UTF8&ll=52.91664,-1.299992&spn=0,359.980688&t=h&z=16&layer=c&cbll=52.914515,-1.299777&panoid=IvUwxANfQ70EhYG09-5lPA&cbp=12,174.2469200928474,,2,3.9250000000000043

    The spycar's wingman appears to have left the lens cap on

  20. Toastan Buttar
    Happy

    Game for a laugh

    Join us again next week when we very much hope you'll be watching us, watching you, watching us, watching you - goodnight !

  21. jhardy

    @Simon Elliot

    "We need a website with a pic of each unique google streetview car and where it has been spotted."

    What we really need is for someone to create a web-page with copies of the paired pictures with Google Earth kml links to where each pair of photos was taken; then when you click on the link, it opens Google Earth with a custom layer with a link back to the web-site showing the two photos, which takes you back ...

    You could bring the whole internet down in a nano-second!

  22. andrew mulcock

    picture quality

    interesting, the quality of the pictures taken of the cars is quite high, whilst the ones of the people taken by the car is quite low.

    Most of the people seem to be using mobile phones, maybe the cars should be equiped with mobile phones to take better quality pictures.

  23. amlendu
    Happy

    So what

    Got snapped at my 5th floor flats balcony when stepped out to show my wife that there goes the google streetview car. Only souls visible on the 11 floor highrise.

  24. TeeCee Gold badge
    Thumb Up

    Re: Finally

    Aha, more proof of my Google Blackmail (tm) 0.1 (Beta) theory as I previously outlined in the Rickmansworth story comments section.

    Obviously Google don't pay themselves to advertise themselves* and the algorithm needs an "except Google of course, you daft bloody machine" tweak.

    *Because such link sponsorship recursion would cause spacetime to fold in on itself and the Universe to be reborn as one very long Ocean Finance advertisement.

  25. Ray
    Joke

    YES

    famous at last.

  26. DR

    page six

    Is also an example of the face recognition blurring failing to work...

    I know that the guy has covered a quarter of his own face with a camera, but still seems quite recognisable.

  27. Stu
    Alert

    General StreetView shenanigans

    You remember that very stereotypical yank holding a bottle and a gun in streetview, well here's my submission for the UK equivalent -

    http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=52.434953,-1.433072&spn=0,359.954896&z=15&layer=c&cbll=52.434818,-1.433204&panoid=JQokEJVO393yYuAms4tweA&cbp=12,86.79216327551691,,3,3.8929178924053844

    Not for the faint of heart. A chav would have been too easy to find. At least this guys face is blurred.

    *shudder*

  28. juan
    Thumb Up

    Found!

    They've already found Waldo now I've found Pop-Eye's girlfriend Olyve Oyl

    @ 110 cheltenham rd, bristol, england, united kingdom

    1st Street View pic in the story, scroll left

  29. Ric

    Report a problem

    http://maps.google.com/local/add/flagStreetView?hl=en-GB&cbp=1,156.9761284279469,,2,15.424059340591093&cb_client=maps_sv&sig=00e23e96eed6ab764c44c8deac925d4fc48cbc3c0a505cd155f2f3238796fe1c39c07a9b2715f1353dcbe6dea11a76b96612f1176f5e19e81e3617a5754863ba216c95bdc19b4e3194&gl=GB

    Sometimes you just got to scratch . . . . . .

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    check the silver mondeo

    They said that they blur faces and number plates check the silver mondeo infront of the G-mobile then look to the rear left at the asda sighn for some reason its been blured...

    http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=52.434953,-1.433072&spn=0,359.954896&z=15&layer=c&cbll=52.434818,-1.433204&panoid=JQokEJVO393yYuAms4tweA&cbp=12,86.79216327551691,,3,3.8929178924053844

  31. Evil Auditor Silver badge

    @AC Re It is a pity that

    What about police men or members of the armed forces and security services in plain clothes? Wouldn't that be banned as well?

    "UK version of Guantanamo Bay (aka Belmarsh, SE London)" I thought that was Guernsey. Or, for boredom's sake, Sark.

    EA

  32. Alan W. Rateliff, II
    Paris Hilton

    How come the government has yet to complain...

    ...about the fuel wasted by these vehicles?

    Paris, wasted fuel.

  33. James Pickett

    Pots and Kettles

    I find the general reaction of the tabloids very amusing. Invasion of privacy? That's our job!

  34. raph

    RHD Opel?

    Am I recognizing correctly that they're using RHD Opel Cars? I didn't know those exist.. Why aren't they Vauxhall (or Holden) badged?

  35. Richard Bazen

    statues..

    ok, slightly off topic here, but have you noticed the way the lovely face blurring technique works on statues.... what about posters etc?

  36. BlueR@nger
    Alert

    They get around

    Saw a google-mobile in Blyth Northumberland today around the port area. Wish I'd had my phone on me at the time to take a snap :(

  37. Matthew Forbes

    another streetcar meeting point, plus a idiot on bouncy shoes

    Here is a streetcar following a streetcar in Edinburgh

    http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?cbp=11,321.9628614403103,,0,20.89673913043478&cbll=55.947989,-3.198032&layer=c&hl=en&ie=UTF8&panoid=gtSkea_9mj7jJNqo_XPrCw&source=embed&ll=55.947986,-3.19803&spn=0.00122,0.006909&t=h&z=17

    Also some idiot who lost his balance in Aberdeen wearing stupid bouncing shoes

    http://maps.google.com/maps?q=aberdeen&sourceid=ie7&oe=utf8&ie=UTF8&split=0&ei=R5PLSfyZNObRjAey1NH2CQ&layer=c&cbll=57.171667,-2.078679&panoid=xhjhcQ6unmFE5ywCFXXDnw&cbp=11,70.33462378485204,,1,10.590062111801238&ll=57.171666,-2.078691&spn=0.004467,0.027637&t=h&z=15&iwloc=addr

  38. Maverick
    Boffin

    Telegraph learning 'pooters

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/google/5047649/Oasis-frontman-Liam-Gallagher-captured-in-pub-on-Google-Street-View.html.

    Fantastic video of someone using Street View. The best bit is not the possible rock stat but that they keep centering the screen and then pressing the + button in the top left. Clearly no-one's told them about the double click to centre and zoom.

  39. This post has been deleted by its author

  40. TeeCee Gold badge
    Coat

    @Richard Bazen

    "........what about posters etc?"

    Good grief! I posted here yesterday. This morning I looked at my reflection in the steamed-up bathroom mirror and my face was blurred!

    Curse you Google.

  41. richard

    @Sadie

    So why where both cars in lane 3 when 1 and 2 were clear hence causing a tailback :)

  42. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bressenden Place

    Bressenden Place, Victoria, outside the Department for Communities and Local Government's Eland House HQ is definitely smack in the middle of the 'twilight zone' - clearly there are two streetview cars following each other up the street, or perhaps there is some weird time-travel, dimension-shifting event going on...

  43. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    My mate Jez

    He saw the sneaky f*****s coming all right:

    http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=141+sunny+gardens+road+nw4&sll=51.51925,-0.315728&sspn=0.00693,0.017231&ie=UTF8&ll=51.596641,-0.225434&spn=0.006918,0.017231&z=16&iwloc=addr&layer=c&cbll=51.596728,-0.225402&panoid=SMPdtdqr4VpAo2OjVUnX9A&cbp=12,288.8374171264795,,1,9.931506849315069

  44. Sam
    Flame

    Ref: "I'm suprised that here in the States"

    "as contrast to, say, the French. They riot in the streets every time a croissant gets burned."

    Please delete "a croissant" and insert "lamb".

    It's a tradition you know.

  45. Antony Rees

    Street car sighting

    Googles streetview car was in Warrington on Sunday (29/3), driving at what I'd call excessive speeds. Do you think google would give out the GPS data to see if any camera car has been driven over the speed limit?

    Didn't think so, I did try to get a photo, but the car was going to fast

  46. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    RHD Opels

    The RHD Opels are from Ireland, we get Opel badges instead of Vauxhall for some reason.

  47. Steve
    Flame

    So what happened to the map you promised in the bootnote?

    Here's my entry, Tottenham sunbather...

    http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=141+sunny+gardens+road+nw4&sll=51.51925,-0.315728&sspn=0.00693,0.017231&ie=UTF8&ll=51.596641,-0.225434&spn=0.006918,0.017231&z=16&iwloc=addr&layer=c&cbll=51.596728,-0.225402&panoid=SMPdtdqr4VpAo2OjVUnX9A&cbp=12,288.8374171264795,,1,9.931506849315069

  48. john edmondson
    Boffin

    got caught carrying the lunch

    for me and some work buddies on the way back to work.

    http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=pets+wood&sll=51.423042,-0.12954&sspn=0,359.972534&g=sw16+6jx&ie=UTF8&ll=60.930432,0&spn=0,174.375&z=0&layer=c&cbll=51.385778,0.075994&panoid=ZKicUa3GzlSnFdK451w_oQ&cbp=12,326.4748588909591,,2,9.049223900273766

    pity they dident use the photo later when i caught up with it at the roundabout.

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like