back to article Google scrubs urinating woman from Street View

If you're ever caught short in broad daylight and decide you really must relieve yourself behind a parked car, it's probably a good idea to make sure there isn't one of Google's Orwellian Street View spymobiles lurking nearby: Urinating woman caught on Street View According to Spanish paper El Mundo, this delightful Madrid …

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  1. Yorkshirepudding
    Stop

    may i be the first to say

    owned? lol

  2. fran
    Coat

    That's just

    ...a bit of a bimmer

  3. Alan Potter
    Unhappy

    Taking the piss

    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?

  4. EvilJason

    What i want to know is...

    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

  5. Tim Russell
    Coat

    Bottoms up!

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

  6. Les Matthew

    Re: Taking the piss

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

    Check 17 and 10. ;)

  7. Martin Gregorie

    Face-pixellation?

    What makes you think her face was deliberately pixellated out?

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

  8. Jon
    Coat

    Watermark

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

  9. Colin Millar

    Pixellating

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

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    @EvilJason

    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!

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A new kind of GoogleWhack?

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

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

  12. This post has been deleted by its author

  13. Martin Silver badge
    Coat

    @What i want to know is...

    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

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Dead Vulture

    Seriously....

    ...No NSFW flag?

  15. Rob
    Go

    Privacy

    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.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The rain in spain falls mainly down... the drain?

    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).

  17. Joe K

    Lucky it was Madrid

    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.

  18. Kathleen Bright

    Urinating publicly

    '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

  19. Huw Davies
    Unhappy

    @Les Matthew

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

  20. Peter Stern
    Joke

    Pissed...

    Boy that pisses me off...

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Was she underage?

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

    AC Black copter.....

  22. Fernando
    Unhappy

    ¡Coño!

    ¡Española tenía que ser! >:(

  23. Michael

    Yeah no...

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

  24. J
    Joke

    Where...

    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!

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @AC was she underage

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

  26. james

    Privacy?

    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...

  27. Les Matthew

    @ Huw Davies

    I wonder which head they cut off?

    Bit harsh either way.

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    "buttock-pixelating algorithm"

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

  29. Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
    Heart

    Obvious Answer...

    "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....

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    seriously, probably NSFW

    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.

  31. Eddy Ito
    Joke

    That's nothing.

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

  32. Jonathan McColl
    Coat

    @ Kathleen Bright, Les Matthew and Huw Davies

    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.]

  33. Winkypop Silver badge
    Joke

    Squatters Rights!

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

    Seems like a lot of piss and wind to me!

  34. Jason Bartlett

    But they havent scrubbed all the images

    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??

  35. James

    I must say

    That is gross.

  36. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "no expectation" that your would be published worldwide either...

    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.)

  37. Dave The Cardboard Box
    Unhappy

    Why pick on Google Streetview?

    You can see her arse on Google Earth.

  38. Thorne Kontos

    What? not San Francisco?

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

  39. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    She was in public

    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.

  40. GHok

    Well, she's obviously not too bright, but...

    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.

  41. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    (untitled)

    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 ?

  42. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Why no link ?

    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.

  43. Metal Marv
    Joke

    On holiday?

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

  44. Dave Henderson

    Not in Edinburgh, obviously

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

  45. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ethics?

    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.

  46. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Wait...

    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...

  47. Gary Littlemore
    Happy

    They clearly haven't removed it.

    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

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