–Obtuse essay by Tomek Brzezinski:
In the plainest sense, the liberal-democratic state is a fusion of individualistic and collectivistic philosophies. The liberalism train of thought contributes principles of individual free action, and the democracy element provides methods of fair and free group cooperation. However as two philosophical ideas with different historical origins, the rights of the individual and the goal of the collective are at times in conflict. In the spirit of a conversation about Google Earth, a program released by Google that offers in-depth free images of the world, the role of these independent philosophical ideas may not be clear. But controversy over a contested lack of privacy in Google Earth’s Streetview, a street-level photo collection of all public streets, can be understood as conflict of those two perspectives.
The relationship of political-philosophical context and your approach the privacy issue relates to existing Streetview privacy battles. In Germany, before allowing Streetview, citizens and government officials demanded more stringent privacy regulations in addition the implementation of a responsive tool to let citizens request places to be blurred (Segall, 2010, 7-8). In light of Germany’s history with the East Germany and overpowered government, a speculative claim could be made that Google Earth was being approached from the libertarian perspective. Through this perspective, Streetview, rather than being a tool to serve people, was seen as a tool that restricted personal domains of action. It was anti-freedom.
By contrast, when not thinking about dominating governments, Google Earth can be seen as a tool enabling free access to information. Streetview not only is a tool to travel to locations you’ve never seen before, but it even expands into the exhibits of some major museums. The idea of 500 people virtually looking at pictures of your home may be unnerving with the memory of oppressive regimes, but without any such expectations of abuse it can be countered that people are far more likely to be glancing at the White House, British Parliament, or museum paintings. For many reasons, those are experiences that could not have been had without the digital evolution of Streetview in Google Earth, whether because of time, cost, or disability. In this sense, an exclusion of those experiences would limit individual choices of action.
For more stringent definitions of privacy this may not be sufficient comfort; many would argue privacy is still at stake in a greater way. Given that Privacy is a fundamental human right recognized by the UN Declaration of Human Rights (Banisar, 1), among other international treaties, this is an important concern. Privacy is an essential component of our modern freedom philosophy, and a lack of it suppresses our ability to freely act as individuals. There are numerous critiques of Streetview’s blanket surveillance of the public domain. Among other concerns, scholars cite the fact people will be less able to act freely under the perception of the potential for a Google Streetview van passing, the fact that there is limited control over the published information on Streetview, and the fact that Google Earth is more dangerous as a centralized collection of many photos (Segall, 2010, 1). This last idea points to the idea of street view privacy as a conflict of libertarian and democratic goals. Although as a private organization Google is not under the same scrutiny as government surveillance would be, Google is a powerful organization with the theoretical potential to control the substantial information about an individual. Streetview is a clearly visual, and powerful, element of that system. However, there hasn’t been any evidence relating Google Streetview to any shady concerted citizen surveillance projects (only minor publicized governmental use). To worry about the grander surveillance privacy implications of street view, which would hurt both the collective and individual, is worrying about the type of malicious actions Google has never been seriously implicated in.
Google’s engineers could be seen as hurting freedom and improving freedom. Whether we see Google Earth as bad or good will depend on how we approach our philosophy: with the individuality based hope of freedom from oppressive instruments, or the democratic based hope for free access to information and open ‘travel’ to destinations. The implications for individual freedom go both ways, and will continue to stay in conflict because of the fundamental boundary between considering collectivism and individuality. Instead of overemphasizing one view point or another, we can endeavor to evaluate the two in all aspects of life. If one wants to argue that Google’s Streetview transgresses individual liberty and autonomy, then they must be also aware that a lack of Streetview and other freely available information technology is another immediate and important affront to individual freedom. What really remains important for the future is the technological evolution of Google Streetview technology. Currently, the idea of Streetview as an institutional privacy threat is merely speculation, because it is not possible to effectively analyze outdated static images. But in the future, if greater computer technology and more up-to-date Streetview photos allowed easier analytical surveillance of individual actions, our patterns of movement and so forth, we would certainly be in more realistic trouble.
Segall, J.E. (2010). Google street view: walking the line of privacy- intrusion upon seclusion and publicity given to private facts in the digital age. University of Pittsburgh Journal of Technology Law & Policy,
Banisar, D. (n.d.). Privacy and human rights an international survey of privacy laws and practice . Retrieved from http://gilc.org/privacy/survey/intro.html
The key point – stated as the lead sentence in the final paragraph – is the Orwellian conflict isn’t it? Google Earth – like many if not all modern mergings of communications & technology – does in fact both limit AND improve freedom, doesn’t it? The truth is today, surveillance cameras, which are routinely on street corners and in public forums ranging from city centers to airports to shopping malls all over the world, do the same thing… from surface level vs up-in-the-satellite-sky. In addition, the realities of military protection today have meant that detailed satellite imagery has been regularly available for decades… BUT the key difference has to do with the readiness – and even the packaging – of accessing those images by the average citizen. Google Earth does it certainly with greater across the board equity of imagery and access… but the tension of libertarian and democratic ideals is worth exploring across all modern combinations of communications & technology.
I thought you brought about an interesting concept when stating that Google Earth Streetview limits and promotes freedom at the same time. I think that if you included a little more information about Streetview, if would likely be helpful to the reader who is inexperienced with the program itself. This way, you could discuss what it is about and how it both helps and hurts freedom by specifically stating different aspects of the program instead of speaking in such general terms.
Tomek, I really like the substance of your article because it goes much deeper than simply agreeing, disagreeing, or restating ideas from the readings. Instead, you have come up with a more in depth analysis of the articles and synthesized it into an intriguing and original idea.
I will say, make sure to proof read your post. There were multiple times within the essay where a missing or added word obfuscated the meaning of the sentence. This is an excellent post and I would hate for a few small things like those to detract from the overall effect of your work.
Tomek, good post and I agree with the previous comments. I started wondering, would we feel more or less comfortable if it was, lets say, General Electric instead of Google? What does this say about national and global trust in corporations? I’d love to see you bring this aspect in because WHO we trust feels as relevant as the data we trust them with. Or not!
An interesting outlook on the problem, Tomek. Your post shows that you have thought deeply about the potential influence of technology on privacy. I was surprised that you did not comment on the fact that the passage of a Street View van on any street is a rare event. Because the van requires a driver, and human resources are expensive, the potential use of this technology to track an individual person is limited. As evidence of the low likelihood of revisiting streets that have already been Street Viewed, consider the small number of places in the world for which Street Views are available. Also note that Google Earth publishes single photos submitted by anyone who chooses to contribute them. Those photos could be even more of a threat to privacy. Although your post is excellent, dealing with these issues would strengthen it.
I am glad that you acknowledged that Google’s “implications for individual freedom go both ways” and that there exists a divide in between a form of collective advantage versus a private disadvantage. However, by associating Google to the ex-East German government or by depicting it as a sort of aid to an oppressive body, I feel that you might be describing Google Earth in a wrong light. If anything Google Earth promotes transparency, and of all states, North Korea, China and Russia feel the most threatened by its imagery. Google cannot because of helping bad governments spy on their people. Privacy is however reduced, as anyone can know exactly how your backyard looks like but not in real time. Your closing statement makes a great point in that we would have more reason to worry if “greater computer technology and more up-to-date Streetview photos” were available.