Due to a large number of privacy complaints, Google Inc. decided to make a change in its Street View Internet map program.
The company’s plan involves the development of a facial-recognition algorithm which will scan all of Google’s photos and automatically blur the faces. The company’s photographers visited 41 U.S. cities and took pictures and panoramic images of streets, bridges, homes and businesses, also capturing many people engaged in several different everyday activities.


The program offers ground-level, 360-degree views of a large number of places with a very high quality that makes it easy to identify the people captured even without the available zoom option.

So far, several adjustments are still needed as the program tends to blur too many things interpreted as faces – still, as Google spokesman Larry Yu said, it is better this way than to have too many faces unblurred.

In March, Google received a request from the Pentagon to remove from the site a series of pictures believed to pose a security threat to several United States military bases.

Lighter concerns regarded a picture with an individual leaving a San Francisco strip club and another with a young woman sunbathing.

The innovative and popular feature has not yet been introduced outside the U.S. but expectations are very high for the future, as Google plans to present its users with a much more complete offer.

Surely, before the company will provide pictures of new cities, their facial-recognition algorithm will be completely fixed up and functional in order to avoid legal or cultural objections from the new participant countries.