Why a Dallas Homeowner Is Concerned About Google Street View: ‘I Was Like, What?’

If you think an 8-foot fence blocks the rest of the world from seeing onto your property via Google Street View, think again.

That was the stunning discovery Steve Hall of Dallas made when he was checking the condition of his and his neighbor's fences on Google Maps. The fence, which Hall estimated to be "shy of 8 or 9 feet tall," was located down an alley. He initially didn't expect that the fence could be viewed online – much less what was on the other side of the fence. But he was wrong.

"I noticed the arrow that went into the alley, and I was like, 'What? I've never seen that before. Since when does Google go down the alley?'" Hall said.

Hall said his own fence, on the opposite side of the alley, is about 6 feet tall and that Google Street View also showed images of his fenced-in property. Hall told KXAS-TV that he was "astonished" by how much the cameras revealed.

Image source: KXAS-TV

Hall notified his neighbors of what he found using the site Nextdoor.com and then requested that Google blur the online images, which it did. While Hall is unsure of exactly when the photos were taken, he estimated that they are from sometime in either March or April.

Google defended its privacy policy, telling KXAS-TV that it offers users an easy reporting tool so that they can request that images be blurred. Hall, however, is now calling that policy into question.

"When you put images over the tops of people’s fences on the Internet, that gives the wrong kind of people very good intelligence access to what's over the top of your fence," Hall said. "Do you have children? Where are your windows? Is there cover? How many doors do you have? Are there glass doors?"

Does Google Street View reveal something you don't want the rest of the world to have access to?

If so, you can request that Google blur it by viewing the image, clicking on "report a data problem," and then specifying what you are requesting to be blurred and the reason.

Image source: Google Street View

According to the company's website, Google's Street View images show what is visible on the day its vehicles visit a specific location. The technology giant notes that it can take months from then for the pictures to go online.

"Your privacy and security are important to us," Google states on its Google Maps website. "The Google Maps team takes a number of steps to help protect the privacy and anonymity of individuals when images are collected for Street View."

(H/T: KXAS-TV)

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