Number Plates News

Google Prevaricates over Number Plate Secrecy

10 January 2011

The Soanes family were dismayed to find that their £12,000 caravan had been stolen from the driveway of their home in Linton, Derbyshire. All hope of recovery seemed lost following a fruitless police investigation into the incident.

A few months later, however, 11-year-old Reuben Soanes made an astonishing discovery. A Google Street View photograph of the family address clearly showed a man standing in the driveway to the house, and a parked 4x4 vehicle.

StreetView is an astonishing world-wide project which has published online high-definition photographs of populated areas of virtually the whole of this country, North America, Europe, Australasia and South Africa. In accordance with Google's standard practice with regard to privacy, vehicle number plates and the faces of individuals, captured by chance, are blurred-out.

The internet giant were able to confirm the date of the image as being the same as that of the reported theft, but are reluctant to release the original photograph, which would almost certainly have captured a readable registration.

Reuben's father, David Soanes says, "It does seem ridiculous that the information is available but Google is not forthcoming with it, even though it could be used to solve a crime. The 4x4 and the man may not even be involved but at least they could then be ruled out of the investigation."

It is not known whether the image of the man in the photograph would be sufficient to identify him, but any random sample of StreetView locations reveals some rather half-hearted attempts to mask individuals, which are barely worth the effort.

UK data protection legislation allows for exceptions in cases of criminal investigation. But Google seem anxious to protect themselves from accusations of breaches of privacy (following a considerable number of complaints in the past) and are adamant that they will not release the photographic evidence without a court order. Negotiations are, apparently, taking place to resolve this.