A spate of burglaries in a Buckinghamshire village had already put residents
on the alert for any suspicious vehicles. So when the Google Street View car
trundled towards Broughton with a 360-degree camera on its roof, villagers
sprang into action. Forming a human chain to stop it, they harangued the
driver about the “invasion of privacy”, adding that the images that Google
planned to put online could be used by burglars.
As police made their way to the stand-off, the Google car yielded to the
villagers. For now, Broughton remains off the internet search engine’s
mapping service.
It was Paul Jacobs who provided the first line of resistance. “I was upstairs
when I spotted the camera car driving down the lane,” he said. “My immediate
reaction was anger; how dare anyone take a photograph of my home without my
consent? I ran outside to flag the car down and told the driver he was not
only invading our privacy but also facilitating crime.”
