...To Peep Or Not To Peep? That Is The Question...

Peeping Toms, we’ve all heard of them. If you’re like me, the image you conjure in your head is one of a seedy-perv-looking character getting off while peering into your bedroom window from his bush hideout. The FreeDictionary.com defines a Peeping Tom as the following:

A person who gets pleasure, especially sexual pleasure, from secretly watching others; a voyeur.

The ever evolving progress towards everything-capable digital media has dramatically changed our lifescape (my hybrid word referring to the tools we make a part of our daily lives). It has reinvented old ways of doing business and daily functions, and made us almost inseparable from Tim O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 concept. However, I can’t help but wonder if this rapid fire evolution of digital media isn’t also simultaneously updating and increasing our list of “Things To Be Cautious Of”… For example, what if we no longer thought of a Peeping Tom as a perverted individual seeking to satisfy himself by perching himself on a tree limb peering into your bedroom, and say called search engine / application mammoth Google the new age Peeping Tom?

The NyTimes article Google Threatened With Sanctions Over Photo Mapping In Germany made me seriously rethink my idea of who and what a modern day voyeur really is. Here is a quick summary of the article:

Germany officials are threatening to sanction Google for violating German privacy laws by photo mapping German streets (which include street views of private residences) on their Google Earth application. German officials are requiring Google to submit in a written statement that they will comply with Germany’s 12 point objection of their Street View application by conforming its mode operation to align itself with German privacy laws. German privacy laws make it unconstitutional to film or photograph houses and/or private property without the owners permission. Google has only made verbal promises to German officials, from which Germany continues to seek “written guarantees from authorized Google representatives…”

I’ve used Google Earth before, and I must admit that I’m guilty of looking up addresses of interest and scrolling the street, through Google’s Street View app, for personal interest and knowledge. I never really pondered the ramifications of such an application. In being so elated that I could now satiate my own curiosities, I forgot to contemplate the curiosity of others. How comfortable are you with knowing that anyone can look you up on white pages and in a matter of minutes see your home, your street, your neighborhood? I know the idea of some random individual being given an all access pass to information about my life made me extremely unsettled. So, I conducted some research on U.S. privacy laws versus German privacy laws, ironically using the all powerful Google search engine. Here’s an excerpt from the German Law Journal on the low down describing the differences between American and German privacy laws:

Germany’s approach to the regulation of covert surveillance thus differs remarkably from its American counterpart. The United States Supreme Court has held that “a person traveling in an automobile on public thoroughfares has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his movements from one place to another.” These reduced protections for privacy follow from the circumstance that surveillance is conducted in public areas and from the mobility and extensive regulation of automobiles. …By contrast, German suspects enjoy privacy rights in public as well as private areas. The degree of constitutional protection turns on how “personal” the information is... Whether observation takes place in public or private is a secondary concern. …

On the German approach to privacy … people do not forfeit legal protection by “knowingly exposing” themselves or their activities to public view. As [James] Whitman points out, naked sunbathers in German parks may even suppress the publication of nude photographs of themselves taken in public.Under German law, of course, people enjoy less protection for privacy in public areas than in their home or workplace. Filming a suspect in public is permissible, while filming him in his home is not. But appearing in public only diminishes privacy protections; it does not cancel them altogether. Thus it makes sense that German law requires advance judicial authorization of long-term visual surveillance even when conducted entirely in public areas. In addressing the permissibility of GPS surveillance, the FCC reaffirms the larger principle that the degree of privacy protection depends crucially on the nature of the information, which this technology discloses. When combined with other surveillance techniques in ways that yield too comprehensive a record of a person’s doings and habits, even the use of a tracking device may violate suspects constitutional right to “informational self-determination.”

Although this texts' main premise is to discuss the use of GPS systems, I felt it applied to Google Earth and photo mapping, since they operate through the usage of GPS systems. I was appalled to discover that our government, which advocates freedoms in a seemingly unending variety of capacities, deems that an individual traveling in an car or public transportation shouldn’t expect privacy in his/her movements. So, is viewing someone’s house via Google Earth’s Street View not considered an invasion of privacy or a form of surveillance because it’s the virtual equivalent of doing a drive by in your car? Maybe the Google Earth app isn't a Peeping Tom by standard definition, but who knows what the person behind the screen is doing...

Questions to Consider:
1) Did the NyTimes article make you think (or re-think) of the ramifications and detriments of applications like Google Earth?

2) How do you feel knowing that anyone can see where you live and consequently gain insight in your life?

3) Do you consider Google Earth’s app (and similar apps) to be an invasion of privacy?