Google Street View heads off road in Britain

BEIJING, July 15 (Xinhuanet) -- Google Street View has moved off road to record images of popular tourist destinations. Among the sites of interest are the ancient rings at Stonehenge, the Millennium stadium in Cardiff, Wales, the Angel of the North and Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland. The locations were picked following an online campaign launched by Google and the travel and tourism body VisitBritain who asked the public to name their top tourist treasures.

Google said it had dispatched a Google Street View Trike, a 115 kg machine with a camera mounted on pole behind the rider. The trike is designed to make imagery collections in places less accessible by cars, such as historic landmarks and coastal paths.

While Google Street View has courted controversy in its mapping of some 25 towns and cities across Britain, the latest venture shows many are warming to the online mapping service. When launched in April this year, Street View was criticized by some members of the British public for breaching their privacy. While Google maintains it blurs out faces and car number plates, some images did manage to slip pass the vetting process.

In some parts of Britain local residents have even impeded the progress of the Google car, blocking its way by linking arms across the street. Police were called to the small village of Broughton to the north of London last April when the Google car arrived to take pictures. However, the Information Commissioner's Office, which is responsible for regulating compliance with the Data Protection Act, rejected calls for the service to be suspended.

While images captured by the Google car have recorded embarrassing moments such as a man entering a sex shop and another vomiting in the street, in one instance it has even helped solve a crime. In June Dutch police arrested two men suspected of robbery after their alleged victims spotted them in a Street View image.

Since it was launched in 2007, Street View has expanded to more than 100 cities worldwide. But it has drawn complaints from individuals and institutions that have been photographed, including the Pentagon, which barred Google from photographing U.S. military bases for the application.

The Street View Trike is expected to record images of the famous Loch Ness in the coming weeks, but it is not clear whether they will blur the face of the legendary monster Nessie should it be captured by their cameras.

(Agencies)