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Chattanooga: Google’s Street View, other public cameras raise concerns for some

By: Andy Johns
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Marc Rotenberg

Log on to Google’s new Street View and you can see cars stopped at red lights on Market Street. You can see two adults and a child leaving Clumpies Ice Cream on the North Shore. You can see a line of children holding hands and headed toward the front door of the Creative Discovery Museum.

You can also see five cars in the parking lot of an adult bookstore on Broad Street, a funeral tent with chairs set up next to a grave in Rossville, a crew of EMTs carrying someone down a driveway on a stretcher in Lookout Mountain, Tenn., and a man standing in front of the Cancer Center at Erlanger.

Google, the Mountain View, Calif.-based search engine, advertising and digital information company, shows both the good and bad of Chattanooga as it rolled out Street View for the Scenic City on Aug. 4.

“It’s not just downtown and Hamilton Place — it really covers all of the neighborhoods,” said John Hawbaker, a blogger and East Ridge resident.

Google started Street View in Denver, Miami, New York, Las Vegas and San Francisco in May 2007, said Elaine Filadelfo, a spokeswoman for Google. She said it is intended as a tool for people to use when finding directions. Users can now look up an address, get directions and pull up a view of the storefront so they can recognize the shop as they drive by, Ms. Filadelfo said.

“It really helps out,” said local graphic designer M.A. Turner, who said he used the service to help plan a visit to San Francisco.

“If you have to go somewhere and you don’t know if it’s a sketchy neighborhood or not you can look it up on there,” he said. “It can keep you from getting mugged.”

But the fact that Street View gives an up-close and sometimes personal view of places and people is disturbing to some.

“Google’s kind of contributing to our desire to become a society of Peeping Toms and I don’t think that’s something that most people, if they think about it for a moment, want to happen,” said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Electronic Privacy Information Center.

Ashley Mill subdivision resident Matt Vischetti felt as though his driveway was a fairly private place, until Google’s cameras captured him working on his car. When told he was visible on Street View, he said he wished Google would have asked for permission first.

“I don’t have anything to hide,” he said. “It’s just, my business is my business. I’d just as soon somebody not be able to take your picture and put it up like that. Everybody in the world can see you.”

Mr. Vischetti is not alone in his concerns. The benefits of the service are nothing compared to the potential costs to personal privacy, according to Mr. Rotenberg. He said there have been complaints to Google from bikini-clad sunbathers and attendees at Alcoholic’s Anonymous meetings who have been captured by the Google car’s lens.

In Chattanooga, residents might be on camera more than they think.

According to the city’s Information Services Department, 11 cameras monitor Coolidge Park with seven more in Renaissance Park. There are four fixed cameras are already on the S curves along Hixson Pike. The Tennessee Department of Transportation operates more than 60 cameras in Hamilton County, primarily along the interstates.

And then there are security cameras at buildings and businesses and shopping centers all over town. The Chattanooga Convention Center, for instance, has a “Lobby Cam,” giving online viewers four live views of the building’s lobby and parking area on the center’s Web site.

Mike Shuford, the Convention Center’s assistant director, said he’s never heard a complaint about the service and the streaming images come from four of the facility’s 100 cameras.

“I’ve had people stand in the lobby and wave,” Mr. Shuford said.

At Google, Ms. Filadelfo said there has been a “relatively small amount” of objection compared to the amount of imagery made available. She said the company uses face blurring technology to obscure the identities of most of those caught in the cameras’ cross hairs. A tab on the Street View window allows users to report inappropriate images, she noted.

Still, Mr. Rotenberg said Google should have to ask permission before posting people’s images.

“We don’t live in a society with glass houses,” he said.

But society has gotten more comfortable with the idea of benign surveillance, said Chattanooga resident Josiah Roe.

“The old ideas about privacy have evolved. We’re used to it,” he said. “If you want to find out about information about someone, Google Street View is probably one of the least of concerns.”

The site does not provide live images, and the images for Chattanooga are several months old, Ms. Filadelfo said.

East Ridge’s Mr. Hawbaker pointed out images of two movie theaters in Chattanooga, where the marquees advertise “The Bourne Ultimatum,” a film in theaters in August 2007.

Google sent a car to Chattanooga rigged with a 360-degree camera on the roof, Ms. Filadelfo explained. As it drives, the car snaps photos, which are then uploaded to computers and integrated into a database for the view.

Several buildings across the area have been painted or changed since they were captured, but the site is still plenty entertaining, according to Chattanooga resident Alice O’Dea.

“The really techie sort of geeky people are excited,” she said. “I’ve seen that on the blogs. The non-geeky people are oblivious to it.”

But those who are oblivious may still be participants. Mr. Turner said he saw himself on Street View, getting out of his car at work with a friend.

“It’s pretty creepy,” he said. “It could be used for evil for sure,” he said. “If you’re like a pedophile, you could definitely use it to track down your victims.”

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