Street View comes to Germany?

Google is making another attempt to photograph the streets of Germany. So why aren't they already all photographed? Why are the few images that are on Street View so old? And so blurry?

In this video I give you a quick explanation of what led to the current state of affairs.

Chapters:
00:00 Outdated and blurry
00:48 Surveillance
01:34 Never been done before
02:40 Censorship
03:19 Accidental snooping?
04:12 Putting Germany on the map

Music:
"Style Funk" and "Hot Swing"
Creative Commons Attribution licence

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[GTDN]

Google is in a good position here. They can just point to Apple and say: "It did not bother you in 2022 with them, why now with us?". Either this resolves things... or Apple has to delete its data.

[guerreiro]

As someone who loves exploring foreign cities in Google Maps and has been fascinated by Germany for years these news makes me happy.

[XShaneX]

Reminds me of the time my Grandma asked me to check on google maps if my grandpa is still at his fishing spot.

[philwoodward]

I'm entirely agnostic about whether Streetview should be allowed, but I've long admired Germany for the simple fact that companies like Google don't automatically get their own way there.

In the UK I strongly suspect it simply wouldn't matter if most people were opposed to Streetview. It didn't even matter when the revelations about the bulk collection of people's unencrypted data from public wifi emerged (because they did it here as well). It was reported in the press and some people got a bit cross, but nothing was done about it.

I think it's good that Germany has its laws and requires the likes of Google to follow them. And that if that means Google gets upset and goes off in a sulk (only to come crawling back years later), everybody in Germany just shrugs and says "suit yourself".

[stefanfriedt]

The main problem for streetview in Germany is taking pictures from 3m above ground is not covered by freedom of panorama and cannot be done without consent by law. If the pictures where take from 2m above ground like in Austria there won't be any need for consent. And Germans also don't like it if American companies think they do not need to obey local law.

[TheDiamondBladeHD]

This is great news, but at the same time a bit bittersweet for the user made street view. A few years ago, during covid, a company named "Rolling-Rotors" made street view for the towns of Reutlingen and Tübingen, and their region. I believe this has sparked some motivation for more people to make that, recently ZX.StreetView (also from the Region of Reutlingen) beginning to make street view by bike in every major City in Baden-Württemberg, including some smaller ones like Herrenberg as shown in 4:30. Now it's even gone as far as the entire Autobahn roads in Baden-Württemberg being mapped by users. But hearing how those efforts are going to be in vain is kind of humbling. Over the last 3 years, a lot of towns have been *fully* mapped with street view from users. And they probably thought they'd be able to map all of germany eventually. But in all honesty, I doubt they're too angry, since the end result of that will be the same, if not better because of better equipment etc.

[webchimp]

Was always a pain to end up in Germany on Geoguesser. I mean it was a big clue that you were in Germany, but figuring out which blurry bit was which took some effort.

[geogecko]

I'm a city planner and believe me when I say this is a gift from the gods. It's unbelievably frustrating if you have to revisit some place over and over again only to find out if there's a trash bin at the corner of the street and other things that you might've forgotten to check

[bananenmusli]

When I visited Munich last year for the first time, I planned all my train and U-Bahn journey in advance and Google street view helped me a lot in finding on which side of the road the entrance for the U-Bahn station is.

[joemiller]

Great video!

If you're looking for topic ideas, maybe you could cover how widespread homeopathic medicine is in Germany compared to the rest of Europe, which I've always found odd

[Nexdex]

I'll be glad to finally see it updated and covering more areas. Also, I always thought it weird that satellite images never sparked the same controversy. In a way, they are more invasive. I can check out the backyard of some rich guy's mansion that would be covered by high fences and bushes from street level no problem. Eitherway though, I don't think in the past 15 years there's been any proof or data that Street View has somehow increased breakins or the likes. Honestly, I think we're gonna be fine...

[werbrotvomstammederbrote]

Apple did WHAT?
*searches the FAX-Number of our lawyer in the yellow pages*
Apple has to blur out our property.

[berulan]

In a country where you've essentially lived through "1984" 50 years before 1984 it's quite understandable that the people are somewhat concerned about the overreaching data collection of some companies that are more powerfull than many states.

[connectingthedots]

I think your video will be the reason why apple gets flooded with blur requests.

[eisikater]

Seriously, Andrew: Although I'm just over 50 and drive a relatively modern car, I sometimes feel like an old man because I don't even turn on the navigation system because I drive by road signs or look at a map (the paper thing) before I start.

[annabelholland]

I think that while street view will be available later this year, it will show captures from 2008-09 and 2020 onwards. The similar thing happened with Croatia where although most public streets were covered, they were all published in 2011-12. In 2022, Croatia received updated street view. Austria had no street view until 2017 and is mostly covered.

I have almost never used street view in Germany or India for fun due to the fact that they had little coverage until only very recently. It was my dream especially for Germany to get modern street view but gave up although Germany does have unofficial coverage in select places (i.e., not done by Google).

I was thinking they should at least capture the autobahn as long as the number plates and faces are hidden from view.

[stef]

I think it's a good thing to not let companies such as Google just do what they want whenever they want to and that it's sometimes also necessary to actively oppose them. But with Google Maps there seem to have been quite some misconceptions going on, probably fueld by the media to a great extent. That said, you actually basically adressed everything I had in mind when I clicked on the video! 2:30 exactly! I even read about some chief of police who said something along these lines, though I believe it was something like "I/We don't believe at this point that criminals would use Street View to survey certain areas" - so he apparently didn't get the concept right, either.
The absurdity then reaches its peak when 'refusing' elderly citizens talk to the newspaper to make clear they don't want Google to display their house/address online for everyone to be found - with a picture of them in front of their house and their names stated underneath.
And it's not that you can't find pictures of streets, houses, areas, often with panorama view, online and noone really seems to care. I think it's really about Google for the most part, the 'big bad company, that's spying on us and wants all of us to be found and able to be surveyed online by anyone whenever they want - and criminals will so benefit from that!'.
Anyway, I'm really curious how it will turn out this time! I personally love to be able to 'visit' other places virtually and I think it really can come in handy when you want to look up places you're about to go and don't want to get lost there, or to just get some first impressions.

[Quotenwagnerianer]

I live in one of the cities that has streetview in Germany. The house where I live in is not blurred. But both next door neighbour houses are. And then you go to Google maps, and the whole city has photgrammetry. Not only can I see there fronts that are blurred in Streetview in there, I can actually fly around the back (even in VR if I want to) and see how the garden situation looks like.
That's how I plan my burglaries. ;)

[RM-elgw]

this is great news. Hopefully they manage to actually pull through with it

[gegessen]

ah, I remember all the quirks that came with the discussion back than. I read a newspaper article where an older couple flamed against Google and how they wanted their privacy. Above the article they were photographed in front of their home and the article was put online together with their full names and address :)