In a bid to streamline EU data protection law compliance, the European Union ordered Google to delete images captured for Streetview after 6 months. For the uninitiated, Streetview is a feature on Google Maps and Google Earth where you can view images of places on street-level. These images are captured by a vehicle equipped with Google’s proprietary camera systems. Google usually stores these images for up to 12 months after first capturing the images, however, according to the EU this is not in compliance with the data protection law which allows only up to 6 months of data retention. Google typically stores Streetview images of other countries for 12 months. Google’s top lawyer, Peter Fleischer, defended their standpoint by arguing that the storage of Streetview images merely serve the purpose of improving their maps-based products.
Read [Computerworld]
WTF. What a bunch of ass-hats in the EU. Are you telling me that a company cannot take a picture of the street – A PUBLIC VENUE- and keep that for more than 6 months???? This is not customer data its public data. All Panoramia pics to be deleted too? Does cloud based information need to be erased also?????????
That's awful, if they prevent Google from doing this they should have to prevent ANYONE from taking pictures and posting them online more than 6 months after the date of capture. Totally dumb.