Google launches Swiss version of Street View

Google has launched the Swiss version of its Street View mapping service allowing a virtual visit of Switzerland's largest cities and suburbs.

Street View provides 360-degree detailed views of streets and homes, adding pictures to the search engine’s existing Google Maps application. But the service has raised concerns among some privacy campaigners.

Zurich, Bern, Geneva, Winterthur, Lausanne and major towns in the Three Lakes and the Bernese Oberland regions are now available on the Street View service. Others will be added later, says Google.

Street View, which was introduced in the United States in May 2007, now covers over 50 US, European, Australian and Japanese cities.

Switzerland imposed privacy rules before allowing Google to introduce Street View.

Passers-by must be informed before being captured on special roaming cameras used by Google to map streets, and sensitive data such as faces and car number plates must be obscured.

The federal data protection officer, Hanspeter Thür, said checks would be carried out to ensure the conditions were met. If faces were visible he would intervene.

swissinfo.ch with agencies