Google has been blurring faces, license plates and other personally identifiable imagery in Street View for some time now. However, in many European countries the service remains terribly controversial. Just recently Germany won a small victory for privacy advocates, getting Google to agree to completely eliminate images requested to be removed.
Normally Google removes images from public Street View if someone requests, but keeps a copy of the image internally. Furthermore, the images that we see as blurred are replicated on Google’s servers clearly. In Germany, if requested, Google will destroy an image. There will be no copy kept which means it can’t be submitted to the courts in the case of a legal request nor can it be used for statistical analysis and money-making purposes.
