Google launches Street View for NZ

Can you see your house? Google's Street View adds ground-level imagery to its Maps application,

Google's Street View kicks off in New Zealand today, making us the seventh country that the popular on-the-ground mapping service is available in.

Street View is a unique Google Maps feature that allows users of the online software to view 360-degree photographs of the surroundings from a street level.

To enter Street View, just go to maps.google.co.nz, and drag the yellow 'pegman' in the top left corner onto any road marked on the map.

Google's product manager for Australia and New Zealand, Andrew Foster, says that over the last 12 months tens of millions of photographs have been taken around New Zealand.

The coverage of New Zealand is far from complete, but is more comprehensive than the Australian version.

"New Zealand has some of the most scenic and remote roads in the world, and now anyone from around the country or the world will be able to appreciate them online," he said.

"As well as viewing images of major metropolitan areas like Auckland and Christchurch, people will be able to take a virtual drive along Scenic Drive to Piha Beach west of Auckland, or along the spectacular Crown Range road between Wanaka and Queenstown.

"New Zealanders will find 101 practical uses for Street View too, from checking out a summer holiday home before booking it, to finding a shop for a Christmas shopping expedition, to conducting research for a school project."

Google has partnered with Tourism New Zealand and the Real Estate Institute, both of which see commercial value in the technology.

"As well as using it to get directions, we're seeing New Zealanders use Google Maps in a range of interesting ways, from companies integrating it with their websites, to enthusiasts using it to create personalised maps related to their areas of interest. We expect the Street View imagery to encourage even more New Zealanders to explore their surroundings and plan their activities online."

He says the Street View feature will be accessible by those who use Maps on BlackBerry or Apple's iPhone.

"As long as you've got the latest Apple update for your iPhone, it will be available from today," said Foster.

Privacy concerns

The internet search giant has come under fire from privacy lobbyists since the service launched in the US in May last year.

But Google's Annie Baxter says that innovative privacy features, and consulting with the Privacy Commission throughout will help avoid any nasty surprises.

"We worked very closely with the Privacy Commission to make sure they were totally comfortable with the steps we've taken," she said.

"The images aren't in real time - they've been taken six to 12 months before - and they're not date stamped. The photos show exactly what you'd see driving down any New Zealand street, and there are automated tools that recognise where a person's face is visible and blurs it so it isn't recognisable."

Number plates on vehicles are usually not visible because of the resolution of the images, and the distance and angle that they're taken from makes reading them difficult.

"If people are uncomfortable with any images, we give them the power to request that they're taken down or blurred with the 'report a concern' link."

- NZ HERALD STAFF