An Argentine police officer has been awarded around $12,500 after a Google Street View camera captured him naked in his yard, leading an appeals court to determine that the tech company “flagrantly violated” his privacy. The event took place in 2017 in a small Argentine town, where the officer was inadvertently photographed unclothed from behind, despite being behind a nearly 2-meter wall. Unfortunately, the image showed his home address unblurred, resulting in widespread exposure on local TV and social media, and causing ridicule in his professional and personal life.
The officer initially faced a setback when a lower court dismissed his claim, suggesting he was at fault for being improperly dressed in his garden. Google defended its position, arguing that the wall wasn’t sufficient to guarantee privacy. However, the appeals court disagreed, ruling that the man’s privacy was clearly violated. They noted that the image wasn’t taken in a public space but inside his own home, and emphasized the violation as an unwarranted intrusion into his life.
The court criticized Google for failing to prevent the exposure of the man’s “entire naked body,” despite its policies to automatically blur faces and license plates in their Street View images. Interestingly, the court did not hold the telecom company Cablevision SA or the news site El Censor responsible for sharing the image, acknowledging their role in highlighting Google’s mistake.
This incident adds to previous legal challenges faced by Google’s Street View. In another case, Google settled for a hefty sum over the unauthorized collection of private data, and in 2010, paid damages for a similar trespass incident.
