Geneva: A Swiss court has ruled that Google
Inc. must guarantee anonymity before publishing faces and
license plates in its Street View service in Switzerland.
A ruling published today by the Swiss Federal
Administrative Court affects any new ground-level pictures
that the popular Internet search engine publishes.
A court statement said the ruling upholds principles
of privacy of control of personal data "regardless of the
actual sensitivity of the information in question."
Lawyers for Google had told the court that personal
privacy was already guaranteed because of technology that
automatically blurs faces and car plates, but conceded the
service was not foolproof.
The ruling can be appealed to the Swiss Supreme
Federal Court.
Google agreed in 2009 to temporarily stop uploading
new pictures from Swiss cities after the country`s data
protection watchdog complained.
PTI
