What Not to Do When Google Street View is Around

You can run, but you can’t hide from the Google Street View camera.

Well, actually, you probably CAN hide, if you see it coming soon enough, but that means you’ll miss your chance to be immortalized forever as a prototypical citizen of this fabulous metropolis.

Google Street View is a feature of Google Maps and Google Earth which offers street-level panoramic photographic views of city streets all over the world. The views are usually shot from a rather bizarrely-mounted multi-lensed camera which sits on the roof of a rather nondescript car. That car then drives around selected cities taking point-of view pictures of the streets - and whoever happens to be on those streets at that moment.

And it’s been out capturing the streets of Halifax lately. A friend of mine spotted it on Quinpool road the other day. That means there’s a pretty good chance that the camera spotted him, too. Fortunately, he wasn’t doing anything immoral or illegal, so he was, in fact, quite tickled that folks in Upper East Estonia might soon be seeing an image of him walking into his favourite diner for breakfast.

But of course, there are legitimate privacy concerns raised by this technology and its permission-less application. There are serious reasons that you may not want your image randomly captured and posted online. To counter those objections, officials from Google have promised that Canadian faces and licence plates will be blurred. That’s probably a good idea, because the camera has already notoriously captured awkward situations in other cities such as people entering or leaving “adult” stores, people urinating or vomiting in public and even one fellow apparently in the midst of committing a break-in.

But I bet there are plenty of more trivial moments when one might not want the ol’ Google Camera to be following them around town, either. Perhaps if you are one of the following people, you should take note. For example: if you are in the midst of an extramarital affair, and occasionally enjoy an indiscreet stroll down Spring Garden Road, arm-in-arm with your lover. Now is perhaps not the best time for this, which, I might add, is generally not the greatest idea, anyway. You think your spouse wouldn’t recognize your cheating butt just because they blur your face a little? This is one time when the cliché, “get a room” might really be a good idea.

Or maybe you’re not looking your best lately - you’ve gained a little weight over the winter, or you haven’t touched up those graying roots in a few weeks. Perhaps you’re in desperate need of a good pedicure. At any rate, you might want to get right on those personal maintenance issues, unless you plan to stay confined to the indoor malls for a few weeks. They may blur faces, but nasty toenails are forever.

Also, if you’re playing hooky from work, you may want to invest in a hat and some dark glasses. Ditto if you’re a closet smoker, chronic nose-picker, or if you haven’t told your spouse you got laid off from work and have been spending your days sadly scouring the want-ads as you wander the lonely streets until you can “clock out” at 5.

On the upside, if you do get caught, uh, with your pants down, you can request that your image be removed from the site. But until we know that the Google car is gone, I think it’s best to be a little extra discreet – and remember that your mother probably knows how to use Google, too.