Google Street View

What is Google Street View?

Google Street View is a software tool that allows users to virtually explore panoramic views of neighborhoods, cities and other areas around the world from their devices. It forms part of Google’s suite of mapping tools along with Google Maps and Google Earth.

The photography for Google Street View is primarily done by cars mounted with camera systems and sensors. But Street View goes beyond city streets and Google uses backpacks, boats, tricycles, snowmobiles, underwater apparatus and even camels in some remote locations such as historical sites and hiking trails. Google also incorporates images submitted by users and purchased from satellite and photography companies.

What is Google Street View used for? It can be useful for a range of purposes, including route or trip planning, virtual tourism, real estate search, finding specific locations and checking the surroundings of a new area before you visit.

Google Street View History

The precursor to Google Street View was a project at Stanford University sponsored by Google that ran from 2001 until 2006, called the Stanford CityBlock Project. The technology was folded into Street View, which launched in May 2007 in five US cities as a feature of Google Maps. It provided users with street-level views of San Francisco, New York, Las Vegas, Denver, and Miami.

Google gradually expanded its coverage over the years to include other US cities and eventually to international locations. The first streets in Europe were in mapped in 2008 during the Tour de France, and Street View went live in the UK in 2009.

By 2010, Google Street View covered much of Europe, Japan, Australia, and parts of Latin America and Asia. It now provides coverage of large areas of all seven continents, including remote locations such as the Amazon rainforest, the Great Barrier Reef and parts of Antarctica.

How Google Street View Works

Google Street View collects street-level images from a fleet of vehicles fitted with systems that incorporate 360-degree cameras, GPS units, and LIDAR sensors to capture detailed images and spatial data as they drive. The vehicles follow predetermined routes and capture images in all directions every few meters. The images are then processed to remove distortions and create continuous panoramic perspectives.

Contributors can also submit 360-degree imagery via Street View Studio for Google to use.

In response to privacy concerns, Google blurs faces and license plates that are visible in the images. Individuals pictured can request additional blurring.

Google Street View vs. Google Maps & Google Earth

How to Use Google Street View

If you’re looking for how to use Google Street View on Google Maps, it can be accessed on desktop and mobile devices:

• On desktop: Navigate to maps.google.com in a web browser and either drop the yellow Pegman figure onto a street on the map or click on a location to access Street View.
• On mobile: Open the Google Maps app, tap on a location, and then select the Street View thumbnail.

Streets that have Street View imagery available are shown in Google Maps as clickable blue lines. You can click or tap on the arrows on the street to shift your view along the street, or drag the mouse around to gain a 360-degree view. The zoom feature allows you to take a closer look at specific parts of the images. You can use the measurement tool to gauge distances between points.

Google has made Google Maps’ Street View history available for some areas to show how a location has changed over time. Click “See more dates” to see a carousel of images from various dates in the past.

In certain locations, indoor Street View allows you to see inside businesses, museums, and other buildings.

Privacy Concerns

Since its launch, Google Street View has faced criticism that it violates the privacy of the people who its cameras unintentionally capture in their private spaces or sensitive locations. As the cameras record images from elevated positions, they often capture views over walls and hedges intended to protect private locations from public view.

Google has responded by implementing several privacy measures including automatically blurring faces and vehicle license plates, providing additional blurring of people, their homes, vehicles, or other identifying features at their request and following strict data handling guidelines.

However, critics argue that Google should do more to protect individuals’ privacy, particularly as people can be captured in compromising situations without their consent.

Several European countries initially prevented Google Street View from operating, until Google lowered the height of its cameras, deleted WiFi data that it collected without permission, or made other privacy guarantees.

Street View was banned from Austria from 2010 until 2017 and its coverage in Germany was not updated between 2011 and 2023 because of public opposition.

Google Street View Pros and Cons

The Bottom Line

Google Street View, by definition, provides street-level views of locations around the world. It has expanded beyond large US cities to remote areas on land and underwater.

Google Street View has changed the way Internet users interact with and explore the world. However, while it offers individuals a convenient way to explore locations and businesses an effectives method of advertising, Google’s method of recording information using cameras, sensors and WiFi data has raised privacy concerns that persist despite some efforts to obscure individuals’ identities.

As Google continues to develop Street View, striking the right balance between utility and privacy will be key to its continued success.

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