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Google Street View UK Launch

Google has launched its controversial Street View mapping service in the UK, with web and mobile phone users able to see 360-degree views of 25 cities from Southampton to Aberdeen.

The company has spent almost a year collecting images, with a fleet of specially modified cars crawling along 22,369 miles of British roads, and the resultant images provide a snapshot of a bygone era before the recession hit the British high street.

Many of the pictures were taken last summer - although the unseasonally wet weather played havoc with Google's camera cars - and show stores that have since gone bust, including Woolworths. Even household goods retailer The Pier is still open for business on London's Tottenham Court Road in the world of Street View as is Zavvi just down the road.

The Zavvi store on Oxford Street is boarded up on Street View, but judging by the utter lack of traffic on what is one of London's busiest roads, that is more to do with the fact that the picture was taken on a Sunday than the image being a record of the company's more recent collapse.

As well as the logistical challenges of taking tens of millions of individual pictures along Britain's roads, Street View has also suffered intense criticism from privacy campaigners since it launched in the US two years ago. An American couple even went as far as to sue Google over invasion of privacy although they subsequently lost the case.

"We recognise that people do have some concerns in terms of privacy," said Google's geospatial technologist Ed Parsons. "But this is the sort of level of detail you would get from driving down a road, the sort of picture you would see in an estate agent's window."

Speaking at the MediaGuardian Changing Media Summit, Google UK's new head Matt Brittin said the company has had discussions with the Metropolitan police "and they have said it actually helps track and monitor crime."

To try to meet concerns about privacy, Street View only contains imagery that is already visible from public roads - as a result 10 Downing Street is not visible. Buckingham Palace is also not on Street View, although it can be glimpsed through the trees on Birdcage Walk. Parsons said this is because of a technical fault with that car, rather than any deliberate intention to give the Queen more privacy than the rest of us. It hopes to put Buckingham Palace into Street View in the near future.

Street View also features technology that automatically blurs both faces and licence plates.

"We have got 99.9% of it right," Parsons said. "But sometimes it does not work completely."

As a result every single photo contains a "Report a concern" link. Anyone who believes they can be identified in a photo, or who wants their property removed from a picture can single out particular areas to be blanked out. When Google updates its photos, these blank spaces will remain.

As a result of these changes, the Information Commissioner's Office, which had been investigating complaints about Street View, last year cleared the service for launch in the UK.

"Although it is possible that in certain limited circumstances an image may allow identification of an individual, it is clear that Google is keen to capture images of streets and not individuals," the watchdog said at the time.

The Daily Mail has been particularly vociferous in its attack on Google, branding it a "burglar's charter". In fact the Daily Mail's owner DMGT owns estate agents website Find A Property, which is one of Street View's key partners and has already integrated the maps into its service, allowing prospective buyers to check out the local area before committing themselves.

Google has also teamed up with Fancyapint.co.uk which uses Street View to help drinkers find their local pubs. "You can also use it the next day to find out where the Hell you have been," quipped the site's co-founder Gordon Butler.

The service went online late last night and already software developers have been using its open-source architecture to build new applications. There is already a programme that links together Street View photos into a virtual driving programme which could be useful for trainee taxi drivers.

Street View launched in the US in May 2007 and is already available in Japan, Australia, New Zealand, France, Spain and Italy.

Hidden within the Street View imagery in the UK will be well-known children's story book character "Wally" wearing his trademark blue trousers, red and white striped hat and jumper and walking stick.

The cities covered by Street View UK are: London, Edinburgh, Leeds, Bradford, Cambridge, Cardiff, Belfast, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Oxford, Sheffield, Nottingham, Derby, Bristol, Coventry, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Swansea, York, Newcastle, Dundee, Southampton, Norwich and Scunthorpe.

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