UK News

Do you object to Google Street View?

Google’s “Street View” service has survived calls to have it shut down. The UK’s privacy watchdog has ruled that removing the service, which allows users to navigate around a 360-degree view of streets and houses in 25 cities, would be “disproportionate to the relatively small risk of privacy detriment.”

Google promised to obscure images of pedestrians or car licence plates but some slipped through the net. The media reported a number of embarrassing images including a man walking out of a sex shop and another being sick outside a pub.

The residents of one village, meanwhile, tried to block the cameras, claiming the service would allow burglars to scope out their homes. The campaign group Privacy International complained to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

A spokesperson for the ICO said: “Google Street View does not contravene the Data Protection Act and, in any case, it is not in the public interest to turn the digital clock back.

“In a world where many people tweet, Facebook and blog it is important to take a common sense approach towards Street View and the relatively limited privacy intrusion it may cause.”

He also said there was no law to stop anyone taking pictures of people in the street, providing they were not harassing them, while members of the public appeared every day on TV reports.

Google has promised to address people’s privacy concerns and said that all requests to remove or black out images would be carried out.

The phuss over Phorm

The targeted online advertising company Phorm, which has been accused of spying, breaking the law and just about everything else in the last year, has launched its latest charm offensive in its battle to prove its innocence.

The British company sparked damning headlines last year when  it signed up the three biggest Internet service providers BT, Virgin Media and Carphone Warehouse to provide adverts to Web sites based on the surfing trends of users.

Phorm says the system is completely anonymous, does not store data on its users and will enable online publishers to make more money by showing more relevant adverts. With more interesting ads, there would also be fewer needed, they say.

Its service, which is yet to launch, has been welcomed by the media regulator and minister in charge of planning Britain’s digital future.

But its critics, who have formed Web sites, campaigns and a devoted following, say the company is “snooping” on online users and selling their surfing habits to advertising companies.

In its drive to win the PR battle, Phorm held its second “Town Hall” meeting on Tuesday evening to discuss the public’s concerns and questions.

Far from feisty, the meeting was a mostly civil affair although the top table, led by former Chancellor and non-executive director Norman Lamont, still faced many questions on how they handle the data.

Is the DNA database too big?

Whose DNA is it anyway?

A “citizens’ inquiry” instigated by the Human Genetics Commission, a government advisory body, wants the records of people who have not been convicted, or whose convictions are long spent, to be deleted from the forensic National DNA Database and says the whole archive should be overseen by an independent body.

The database was established in 1995 in Britain – the country where scientists first pioneered the technique of DNA fingerprinting.

It now contains genetic profiles on more than 4 million people, representing the highest proportion of any population on a forensic DNA database in the world, at over 6 percent.

A future government might misuse the information, members of the inquiry fear. One  says keeping all the DNA records would be the first step towards a totalitarian state.

Police, though, find the database a boon, especially in trying to solve ”cold” cases from the past.

What do you think? Is the database becoming too big?

Max Mosley’s “hanky spanky”: titillation or public interest?

Motor racing chief Max Mosley has won his privacy case against the News of the World, after a High Court judge backed his claim that the paper had no right to print details of his sado-masochistic orgies.

The News of the World had reported that Mosley, President of Formula One’s governing body and son of Britain’s 1930s fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley, had taken part in a “sick Nazi orgy”.

But the judge backed Mosley’s claim that this was untrue and so reporting on the sex sessions was not justified.

The paper’s lawyers had argued the orgies were not just “hanky spanky” and its editor Colin Myler said he believed the story was of legitimate public interest.

The case is likely to pose questions for the media, with some commentators saying it will limit the freedom of the press and its reporting of well-known figures’ private lives in the future.

Was the paper right to print the story or is it a well-deserved slap in the face for intrusive tabloids? Tell us what you think.

Max Mosley’s “unfortunate interest”

FIA motorsport head Max Mosley is suing the News of the World in the wake of its revelations that he held sado-masochistic spanking sessions with prostitutes.

He is not alleging libel but breach of privacy, saying that although he had practised what he called his “unfortunate interest” for some 45 years, it was his business and his alone and had no bearing on his professional position.

He is asking for exemplary damages — which are meant not to compensate the claimant but to punish the offender.

One of the planks of the News of the World’s defence is that his high-profile job meant he had a responsibility to behave himself and that exposing him was in the public interest.

The Independent says the case is the “frontline in a legal battle for freedom of expression.”

What’s your view?