The British Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has given Google’s controversial Street Viewsoftware the go-ahead in the UK.

The tool is an add-on to Google Maps and Google Earth that offers photographs of streets and cities. However, many of the photographs feature passers-by who have been caught unawares.

Following a number of concerns over privacy, Google trialed a technique in the US that involved blurring the faces of people by caught in the snaps, but privacy groups including Privacy International continued to campaign against the launch of the software in the UK.

Google Street View is a feature of Google Maps and Google Earth that provides 360° panoramic street-level views and allows users to view parts of selected cities and their surrounding metropolitan areas at ground level. When it was launched on May 25, 2007, only five American cities were included. It has since expanded to hundreds of locations in the United States, France, and Italy.

Google Street View displays photos that were previously taken by a camera mounted on an automobile, and can be navigated using either the arrow keys on the keyboard or by using the mouse to click on arrows displayed on the screen. Using these devices, the photos can be viewed in different sizes, from any direction, and from a variety of angles.

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