Google recently launched their Street View service in the UK, which is integrated with Google Maps, and allows you to view seamless 360 degree photo panoramas of a number of locations throughout the country. It’s just like a virtual tour of those locations.

The images were captured using a camera mounted on top of a car fitted with a GPS recording system. The images are stored with their GPS location, so finding the images surrounding a covered area is straightforward. Most of London is covered.

As with any photograph taken by anyone in a populated area, anonymous passers-by get themselves in frame. And most of these anonymous passers-by don’t know their souls have been stolen they have been photographed. Obviously, many people will appear on Street View without knowing it.

But they can find out. They can find out by looking at the Street View (perhaps looking until they find themselves) of locations they regularly visit. It seems a lot of people don’t like the idea of having photos of them appearing on the Internet without their consent, and want Street View to be shut down.

At first, this seems like a reasonable reaction, and one that, without thinking too much about it, most of the public will get behind. But why might you complain about being photographed on Street View? There are two reasons:

1. You did not give your permission for the photo to be taken.
2. The image shows you in a certain location.

Again, they seem perfectly valid reasons. At first.

Although seemingly few people (including a lot of Police officers) know, UK law permits photography in any public place, and in any private place with permission. You can even take a photograph of a private place so long as the photo is taken in a public place; so, oddly enough, you are able to take a photo looking into someone’s house from the street outside. If that’s your thing, of course. If you don’t want to be seen sitting in your front room naked, close the bloody curtains – you can’t stand naked in front of someone, then complain they’re not respecting your right to privacy.

Once you have taken the photo, the copyright is yours, and you are able to do (almost) whatever you want with it. Just look at the tabloid press, for example.

So that dismisses reason #1 above. If you’re in public, you cannot stop people from seeing you. You might get into someone’s photo, especially if you’re out and about around Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, or St. Paul’s Cathedral. You’re probably going to get into someone’s photo album, or appear on Flickr. Oh no! Let’s sue Flickr!

As for #2, I can nearly understand not wanting to be shown in a certain location. But with or without Street View, there’s no way to prevent people from accidentally seeing you in that location if you go to that location. And the aim of Street View is not to intentionally find you and blow your cover. Apparently, one man complained to Google because he was shown leaving a Soho sex shop. So what?

If you don’t want to be seen leaving a Soho sex shop:

1. Wear a good disguise.
2. Make sure there is nobody about when you leave a Soho sex shop.
3. Don’t go to a Soho sex shop.

Google has automatically blurred out faces and car registration numbers as a gesture to the Information Commissioner, who probably had concerns – not because of law, but because of the way the public would react (which, strangely, isn’t fuelled by The Sun’s faux-outrage for a change).

Ultimately, it’s no different to someone walking down the street and passing your house/office/favourite park bench. If you’re sitting naked in your lounge, and you haven’t closed the curtains… well, what do you expect?

If privacy is really your main concern, start off by opting out of the edited electoral register, shredding your credit card statements, and stop Twittering every 18 seconds. There are bigger things to worry about than being seen in public.