Google launches 360-degree photos of every street in London

GOOGLE today launched a new site showing 360-degree photographs of virtually every street in London.

The Street View service will cover 22,360 miles of roads in 25 cities around the UK.

It includes all central London and most of the suburbs. Users can zoom in on images and virtually "walk" streets. The site stitches together millions of digital pictures of streets captured using a fleet of cars with 360 degree cameras on their roofs.

Google said some streets, such as Oxford Circus and parts of east London, had been missed because of traffic problems when the pictures were taken, but pledged to update the service regularly to try to cover all of the capital.

But the launch has raised major privacy concerns from critics who say it could be used to plan crimes or even expose people involved in illegal activities.

Campaigners today pledged to launch a legal challenge against the service, claiming it violates the right to privacy. "These images are being captured without people's permission for commercial use, and we believe that it not legally acceptable," said Simon Davies of Privacy International. "They are also putting into place a system for updating these images in the future, and for storing the images digitally where they could be misused." Google was last year investigated by the Information Commissioner's Office over the plans, but was given the all clear.

"We are satisfied that Google is putting in place adequate safeguards to avoid any risk to the privacy or safety of individuals, including the blurring of vehicle registration marks and the faces of anyone included in Street View images," the ICO said.

Google said it had gone to great lengths to avoid privacy problems. "We have software that automatically blurs car numberplates and faces," said a spokeswoman. "Any user can easily flag images for removal by clicking on a 'Report a concern' link. We believe we have addressed all the issues."

Whether the new site will reveal anyone or anything in an embarrassing or compromising position remains to be seen.

London Mayor Boris Johnson said the site could boost tourism by allowing visitors to see the capital before arriving. "London's unique beauty, splendour and energy is truly illuminated in cyberspace with this superb new tool. It is simply fascinating, even for a Londoner like me."

Sony is teaming up with Google to fight Amazon's lead in the digital books market. The tie-up with Google will allow Sony to boost the number of titles it offers through its eBook store to more than 600,000. Amazon's Kindle currently gives access to just over 245,000 titles.