Google Street View in English: no luck, but try the French version
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Google Street View is being taken to the Swiss administrative high court in Bellinzona, Ticino, by Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner Hanspeter Thuer, after weeks of discussions have failed to force the company to comply with Thuer’s directives. The federal government, in a press release Friday 13 November notes that Thuer “requested Google to take various measures to protect personal privacy in its Street View online service. Google has however refused to implement the majority of the measures recommended.”
Google’s Swiss street views went online in mid-August, but 11 September the government ordered the company to better camouflage faces and vehicle license plates, particularly near “sensitive” areas such as schools, hospitals and prisons. Bern says that in its written reply 14 October Google refused to comply with most of the requests, or take into consideration these problems:
President Mwai Kibaki of Kenya has removed the country’s police commissioner, putting Mohammed Hussein Ali in charge of the postal service instead. He also removed seven top deputies, but the official statement on the changes gives no reason. Ali was brought in six years ago to clean up the police force, which had a reputation for corruption, but human rights groups in Kenya and outside, including Human Rights Watch and the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, have accused the police of looting and raping during the 2007 election riots where more than 1,000 people died. The new man in charge is Mathew Iteere, who has headed what the BBC describes as the “elite General Services Unit – the feared police shock troops often called in to control civil unrest.” Initial reaction to the changes, inside and outside Kenya, appear to be cautiously positive. BBC World Service radio, Independent Online, South Africa and 28 August editorial in AllAfrica on reforms under discussion
