Always On

Jul 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Stephanie Silk

In a world where camera phones instantly take photos and text messaging acts as a silent walkie-talkie, privacy seems out of reach. The latest feature from Google — called Google Street View (GSV) — raises even more privacy questions.

GSV is a program that uses imagery gathered by vehicles equipped with advanced imaging technology. The vehicles are driven on public streets in Denver, Las Vegas, Miami, New York City and San Francisco, collecting data using cameras from Immersive Media, a Calgary, Alberta-based digital video imaging company, so Internet users can view and navigate street-level imagery. More cities will be added in the future.

Though the images are not in real-time, most are under a year old, according to Google. An image of a building can show details such as parking lots, doors and even the location of a surveillance camera. Some, including Curtis Baillie, president of Security Consulting Strategies LLC, West Chester, Pa., a security management consulting firm, see this as a tool for terrorists or criminals to get to know their point-of-entry better.

Baillie used to work at a national headquarters for a major retailer located in San Francisco. He recently used GSV to look up his old stomping grounds and found that he could see clearly into the lobby of his old office. “I was very surprised to be able to see that,” Baillie says.

“This is going to become the newest avenue for terrorists to ‘case the joint’ and survey their area of interest before committing a crime,” Baillie says.

Google says Street View contains imagery of public property, which is no different than what one might see driving down the street. But, Baillie points out, GSV is an easier way for terrorists to study a business's security without getting caught. “If you walk down the street taking pictures of targets, someone can catch you. But now, thanks to Google, that ‘problem’ has been solved.”

Not everyone thinks that this tool will open doors for terrorists, including Nathan A. Corbier, managing director of Cityscape Solutions LLC, Kenosha, Wis., a company that provides consultation services to clients to protect their information assets from physical and logical threats.

Corbier points out that GSV only provides a 360-degree panoramic view of a business entrance and that it only showcases one side of a business that probably was already available on the Internet. “One looking for the information [before GSV] just hopped on Google Image Search or Flickr and got the pictures that way,” he says.

Along with doing a picture search, Corbier says that criminals, law enforcement, the Department of Homeland Security and private security firms have been using programs for years to assess sites. “Terrorist organizations are not computer illiterate.”

Corbier is convinced GSV does not pose a threat to buildings being surveyed. “While criminals can look at the physical structure of the front of the building on the street view picture and the top-down satellite imagery from Google Earth, this information is dated and does not take the place of gathering real-time intelligence,” Corbier says. “GSV will not tell a criminal, a terrorist or a competitor if there is security, if they are armed, the security force strength or even if the place is alarmed. I do not believe that it can replace the man in the van with the camera.”

For those in the corporate security industry who don't want their building to be a part of this, both Baillie and Corbier offer the same advice — tell Google.

“If they are in a region that's going to be scanned, then they need to look at the photos. Is there something there that they don't want seen? Submit a take down request, which Google honors,” Corbier says.

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© 2008 Penton Media Inc.

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