Google removes some street view images

March 21, 2009 Google’s release of Google Street View, which is a panoramic street-mapping tool, has sparked complaints which have forced the company to remove some images.

Some of the images that were removed have been said to depict individuals, such as a man entering a sex shop, a person throwing up, and people being arrested.

Google has stated that if anyone wanted their picture removed, they would do so. "We've got millions of images, so the percentage removed was very small," said Laura Scott, a spokesperson for Google, to the BBC. "We want this to be a useful tool and it's people's right to have their image removed. The fact there are now gaps [in Street View] shows how responsive we are," she added.

Street View was released on May 25, 2007, and is available in many different countries, including the United States, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, France, Spain and Italy.