Google warns of Swiss street-view switch-off

Google’s street-view service for Switzerland could be switched off unless the country’s supreme court overturns a ruling requiring a guarantee of anonymity for anyone pictured, the company said.

The internet giant wants the Swiss Federal Tribunal to throw out a lower court decision in April that forced Google to ensure all faces and vehicle number plates are blurred before uploading pictures to the service that provides panoramic tours of the world’s streets.

The ruling by the Federal Administrative Court in Bern, following a complaint from the country’s privacy watchdog, also ordered the company to obscure other identifying features, such as skin colour and clothing, from people photographed in the vicinity of “sensitive establishments”, such as women’s shelters, retirement homes, prisons, schools, courts and hospitals.

If Google fails at the higher court, it would be the first time that the company has permanently switched off the street view anywhere, although it has faced privacy concerns in many of the 27 countries where the service is available.

Switzerland’s data protection commissioner, Hanspeter Thuer, had filed the complaint against Google after deciding that the company’s automatic face blurring software was not 100% accurate.

During a court hearing in February, Mr Thuer used a live version of to demonstrate examples where the software failed to obscure faces of adults and children in public – including outside the court – and even inside private homes.

Google has one of its biggest offices outside the United States in Zurich, where hundreds of engineers develop new services for the company.

As part of a publicity drive earlier this year, it took its Street View cameras into the Alps to photograph the country’s spectacular ski slopes.