Google Street View
Since the start of technology until this day, we have been asking ourselves what an ethical way of using technology is. Technology is a precious invention that humans have developed, yet technology has opened doors for illegal activities such as hacking and photoshopping pictures of our relatives and loved ones. Recently, I watched a video about an AI tool that takes off the clothing of individuals; hence, imagine you have pictures of your daughter, and someone tries to implement the AI tool and does this to your daughter! In addition, an AI tool allows you to add your picture and write text, and you will speak. However, Google Street View is an assist for our elders and even for me. Vaidhyanathan wrote an interesting perspective regarding Google Street View; Vaidhyanathan said, “Google Street View allows users of Google Maps to take a 360-degree view, at ground level, of streets and intersections in many cities in (as of 2009) the Netherlands, France, Italy, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, in addition to the United States and the United Kingdom.” (Vaidhyanathan, p. 98) Google Street View is known worldwide for its use in many countries. However, Google Street View has its use. For instance, “[Google Street View] is a useful tool I regularly use on community design and streetscape projects. It saves me from the drudgery of taking hundreds of photographs of a site, and the user interface is more intuitive than flipping through, say, 100 photographs of a street.” (Vaidhyanathan, p. 99) In this case analysis, I argue that Girl In Wave: Wave in Girl should face the challenges of technology and its effectiveness in our society. One of the exciting concepts that Floridi introduced was information friction, which is defined as the challenges and obstacles that prevent the flow of information, such as encryption. One of the most hateful topics that I had was encryption. Even though it provides users privacy, I believe that encryption can delay the information flow, and our government often finds it an obstacle to accessing criminal data. Besides encryption, technical issues and challenges exist, such as software systems such as MAC IOS and Windows Intel. We currently have two standard software systems, yet we are experiencing some transfer data issues. However, Google Street View has technical glitches due to the complexity of the software that Google uses. In addition, Google Street View has difficulty storing the data on the street; imagine the intensive data that Google has for all the streets worldwide. Hence, I believe that our school system should implement technology programs that allow kids to think more about how to develop technologies that assist world-class companies; for instance, Finn and Cramer, the editor of Girl in Wave: Wave in Girl, mentioned, “Our present U.S. educational system is not science based; instead, it has become business based as the dehumanizing loop of frequent; expensive standardized testing, and targeted materials developed and sold to enable school system to focus on testing success.” (Finn and Cramer, p. 70) Our school system must find a way to engage the students in developing programs interested in technology. Those programs should be optional because we want students interested in technology. Google Street View lacks image accuracy due to distorted and mismatched images. This issue happens when many photos are together; these issues still exist even when minimizing the algorithms. Nonetheless, one of the ethical issues I have with Google Street View is that it takes pictures of cars, people, and some sensitive places. For instance, I work in a moving company, and on June 24, 2023, one of my best colleagues unfortunately died; whenever I miss him, I open Google and see him. Sometimes, it kills me when I walk by his cubical, and unfortunately, I was looking through Google, and I wanted to see if Google Street View took a picture of my car. Google did take a picture of my car, but this is less important than my colleague’s. He was one of my best friends; he helped me in the first months when I was hired back in 2021; he had a pure heart and was very caring.
Google Street View must remove people and cars from their images. The issue with these pictures is not something immoral; it is an excellent assist to people, but if you have loved ones who died and Google Street View captured them, it could be emotional. Some places have privacy, such as military bases, and unfortunately, Google Street View captures pictures of those sensitive places, such as the one below. Naval Station Norfolk is one of Virginia’s most extensive navy bases, and these photos could be one of the vulnerabilities to these types of places.
Grimmelmann has predicted the issue that we are having, in which privacy is one of the biggest concerns. However, we must think if Google Street View revokes our privacy. Google Street View is subject to revoking the privacy. For instance, Google Street View captures images of cars; I know those pictures are blurred to most of us, yet you might get the license plate number with some technological tools. If you have these tools, you can break into personal identity information: social security numbers, names of car owners, addresses, and maybe email addresses. Once you have this information and access individual email addresses, you can determine the bank account credentials. This is considered a long run for hackers, yet it is one of the ways that you can hack people, especially if the cars that you are aiming for are expensive. Nonetheless, I have mentioned above that some people, including me, have lost loved ones. However, my other concern is that Google Street View captures sensitive places such as military bases and people’s properties. Nonetheless, we understand that Grimmelmann has some concerns about Facebook revoking users’ privacy: “It is an elegant theory, except for the inconvenient fact that it does not fit the available data. Actual Facebook users act in ways indicating that they care about privacy. When Facebook rolled out News Feed, there were massive user protests, and Mark Zuckerberg had to apologize to the Facebook community. The same thing happened a year later with Facebook’s Beacon advertising system and a year after that with a change to its data-retention policy. Meanwhile, when Facebook users find out that others are looking at their Facebook profiles, such as employers, relatives, or police, they also object.” (Grimmelmann, p. 798-799) If you take a moment to think of the violation that Facebook is doing against its users, you would not compare it to Google Street View. Facebook had spent two years defending its stance, and Mark Zuckerberg had to testify in Congress that Facebook does not violate the user’s privacy. I believe that Facebook violates user privacy as some users claimed that Facebook stalked people, shared private messages and contacts without the user’s consent, and denied location privacy. Most of the social media has violated our privacy. For instance, If you are talking about Tacos, let’s say you see your phone suggesting restaurants that serve tacos; even if you are thinking of something for your kitchen, you will see an advertisement. Nonetheless, technology has expanded more than we are capable of managing, and the issues are complex and indiscriminate because we need the proper time to keep pace with technology. I still remember talking to my cousin in 2010, who used to live in Dubai via Yahoo, and fourteen years later, we have WhatsApp with video on our cellphones and do not have to turn on that big computer that we used to have. We need to take a moment to determine the issues, such as whether Google Street View is ethical. Fortunately, we had the chance to set some rules against hacking.
As you can see, I believe in technology development, and there are many obstacles, as Finn and Cramer mentioned. Nevertheless, we need to take a stand against the violation of privacy. People might think that Google Street View is harmless and not dangerous to our community. The issue with Google Street View is that some servers are subject to hacking. Grimmelmann mentioned that Facebook is violating the user’s privacy. Most of the people believe that Facebook is valuable. Our world is becoming smaller due to social media, yet my father tells my nieces and nephews to go outside and enjoy nature because everyone has a tablet. Nonetheless, Floridi mentioned that we need ways of managing network flow to reduce technological obstacles. As my father said, everything in this world has two sides, the positive and negative paths, and it is our job to define our paths.