Internet giant Google has moved to quell the concerns of netizens over the introduction of Street View in Malaysia, saying the imagery do not infringe on privacy or safety.

The imagery only feature public property and Internet users can opt to obscure identifying features of property and individuals, Google said.

“Street View imagery is not real time, so it’s no different from what any person can readily capture or see walking down the street,” Google's head of communications and public affairs (Malaysia, Pakistan and Bangladesh), Zeffri Yusof, said in an email to Malaysiakini.

Zeffri said Google’s “highly-sophisticated technology” automatically blurs out human faces and licence plates of vehicles.

However, those who find themselves featured, despite the technology, can request to be blurred out. Even entire buildings can be blurred out on request.

Zeffri was responding to concerns by netizens that Street View, introduced in Malaysia this week, infringes on their privacy and safety.

Steet View is a technology that provides panoramic views of different parts of the world at street level. It does so by stitching still images captured by specially-assigned vehicles.  

‘Burden on the victim’

However, Malaysian netizens have raised concerns that the technology allows direct access into residential areas.

They have also raised concerns that the burden is on individual users to request that their homes be blurred out of Street View.

“It’s as if someone took your picture and spread it on the Internet, and you don’t realise this for a while.

“As the victim (of infringement of privacy), it is you who have to ask that the picture be taken down.

“And all the while, how many billions of people have had a chance to capture the image?” blogger Daunpisang wrote in a commentary published on Yahoo! Malaysia.

However, Zeffri said Street View is actually beneficial to both consumers and business.

“Street View is great for planning holidays and road trips just before you do it in real life.

“There’s also an economic dimension to maps: it helps businesses get discovered, usually by people who are around the neighbourhood.

“In fact, roughly one in five searches on Google is related to location,” Zeffri added.