Google Street View recently began capturing images on Swiss ski slopes, starting with Zermatt in February.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A Swiss court Monday 4 April backed “partially”, according to the court’s statement, the arguments of Switzerland’s Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner Hanspeter Thuer, in ruling that Google must obscure faces and license plates for use on Street View.
“According to the judgment of the [federal administrative court], the defendants must make all faces and number plates unrecognizable before the pictures can be published on the Internet,” the statement says. “In the vicinity of sensitive facilities, the anonymity of individuals must be ensured. The BVGer concludes that the interest of the public in having a visual record and the com-mercial interests of the defendants in no way outweigh the rights over one’s own image, as the pictures can be made more or totally unrecognisable, and this is a proportionate measure. The judgment may be appealed against to the Swiss Supreme Federal Court.”
The court says the case pits commercial rights against “the right to have the private domain respected and the rights of the individuals in question over their own image”.
Google reacted quickly, saying it is disappointed in the verdict.
“We have received the court’s verdict and are currently assessing its implications. We are very disappointed because Street View has proved to be very useful to millions of people as well as businesses and tourist organizations. More than one in four of the Swiss population has used it since the service launched in Switzerland. We’ll now take some time to consider what this means for Street View in Switzerland and our appeal options.”
The court pointed out that it is not forbidding Street View, but it suggested Google may have to review the cost of additional obscuring of any faces and number plates, and that in the end consumers may find the cost is passed on to them.
The court decision, based on the idea that permission must be granted before any face is shown on the Internet, raises serious questions for other Internet media producers, including news organizations.
The court commented, in its ruling, that:
“it must not be forgot-ten that what is at stake here is ultimately not a blanket prohibition of Google Street View but
merely the publication on the Internet of images of individuals only where they have been made unrecognizable or, as the case may be, only where the consent of the individuals in question has been obtained.“The defendants are chiefly asserting their own commercial interest in the operation of Google Street View, in particular the interest in expanding their position in the area of online map applications and in entering new markets with applications such as navigation systems. Linked to this is the sale of advertising space. Where the defendants are referring to the interest of numerous private individuals, firms, and public entities in the free use of its online service, this use is also in its own financial interest.
“The claimants are discounting any breach of privacy rights of numerous individuals, in the interest of their commercial success. All privacy breaches could be avoided, but this would entail ad-ditional costs for the defendants, as they would have to make images (even more) unrecognis-able in part manually.
The additional costs would obviously not, however, jeopardise the commercial survival of the defendants. In addition, passing on the cost to the users of Google Street View would not be out of the question. The avoidance of additional costs and the free-of-charge and thus commercially attractive offering of Google Street View are, in principle, to be recognized as profit-oriented interests of the defendants and cannot outweigh the interests of the individuals in question.
Background, Google Street View, opening of the trial in 24 February 2011 and
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Put down your cards, fellas, for the Texas Hold’em game is over in Switzerland, outside of casinos. The game is the rare variety of poker that’s been allowed outside casinos, but a series of court cases has just ended with a decision restricting where the game can be played.
The judges at Switzerland’s highest court said they were not convinced that skill outweighed chance in the test case that went through lower courts. Swiss law allows some tournaments for money to be organized outside casinos if a set of conditions are met, if it’s not clear whether the game involves more chance or skill: in the test case these conditions were not met.
Texas Hold’em was allowed outside Swiss casinos starting in 2007.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Geneva’s Rom population has received support from the canton’s justice system in its ongoing fight with the police over begging in the city. An appeals court Thursday 17 December upheld an earlier decision that a group had been arrested illegally, and their fines have been overturned. In some cases the fines had been turned into jail time, when those caught begging did not have the money to cover their fines.
The ruling could affect thousands of other fines, 20 Minutes was told by Mesemrom, a group that represents Rom interests in Geneva.
The Constitutional Court in Italy, the country’s highest, ruled Wednesday 7 October that a law giving Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi legal immunity while in office is unconstitutional because it violates the principle of equality of all Italians under the law. Berlusconi responded by saying he expected the ruling, saying the court was dominated by left-wing judges. “We must govern for five years, with or without the law,” he said. “These things charge me up. Let’s go. Long live Berlusconi.”
The ruling opens up the possibility that Berlusconi will testify in at least three trials currently underway for corruption, all of them involving his business interests. BBC, Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica
Alinghi into the water, Lausanne April 2009 (image, Carlo Borlenghi)
New York, NY, USA (GenevaLunch) - Conflicting reports are surfacing about what exactly a New York Supreme Court judge ordered 14 May, in the legal case linked to sailing’s America’s Cup , but it appears that Justice Shirley Kornreich upheld an earlier decision that Alinghi and BMW Oracle must race against each other by February 2010 at the latest. AFP wire service reports that Kornreich insists the two must have what will amount to a rare battle between two boats in the America’s Cup, but the story sheds little light on where this race fits into the planned Cup races that include several other teams.
