Amid concerns of privacy in Europe and several western countries, Google launched its popular but controversial mapping service Street View, in India's technology hub Bangalore. This will allow users to view pedestrian-level photos of streets and houses.
Google said on Thursday that it has started capturing images of Indian streets which will later allow users to view panoramic images of streets across the country the 'street view' feature on Google Maps. For starters, cars and three wheelers, mounted with high resolution cameras will begin driving and taking street level photographs of public locations around Bangalore , top Google executive said at a press conference here on Thursday.
'We are announcing the street view in India. You will start seeing Google cars on the streets collecting imagery and then over time, it will be launched online on Google maps,' said Vinay Goel , Product Head, Google India .
Street View is a popular feature of Google Maps which is now used in more than 27 countries. With street view, users can virtually explore and navigate a neighborhood through panoramic street-level images. Besides cars, specially designed three-wheel pedi-cabs, called Google Trike with camera system mounted on top , will start gathering images from selected locations such as the Nrityagram Dance Village over the next few weeks.
The company's move comes at a time when the Indian government is becoming more and more conscious of privacy laws. In a recent amendment to the existing Information Technology Act, India has added many clauses that protects sensitive information of the citizen. Privacy advocates criticised the feature in the United States where it was first launched in 2007. After Google admitted that it collected wi-fi payload data by mistake using the street view cars, lot of bad press and protests followed. Google has stopped collecting wi-fi data.
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