A court in Argentina just awarded roughly $12,500 to a man who was photographed naked by a passing Google Street View car while in his own backyard.
The man is a local police officer. He was casually enjoying the sun hitting his happy areas when the Peeping Tom that is the Google Street View car came up rolling through his Centenario back in 2017.
Sometime later, an image of his naked body became visible to anyone who viewed his home using Google Street View. As tends to happen with the odd stuff Street View picks up, someone discovered the image, shared it online, and it went viral.
It was later picked up by national TV, complete with his street name and house number on full display. As you can imagine, having an unblurred Google Street View image of you in the nude shared online without your consent doesn’t exactly do wonders for your street cred as a law enforcer.
Man Awarded $12,500 After Google Street View Snaps Him Naked in Backyard
The man claimed neighbors and colleagues ridiculed him, so he filed a lawsuit against Google for violating his privacy and dignity. Initially, a lower court shrugged and said he only had himself to blame for “walking around in inappropriate conditions,” but an appeals court disagreed.
They ruled that just because you’re naked in your fenced-off yard doesn’t mean you’ve waived your right not to be globally broadcast in high-def. They called it a “blatant” invasion of privacy and an “arbitrary intrusion” into his private life.
Google’s defense is that the wall wasn’t high enough, which is quite victim-blamey of them. The court pointed to Google’s policies on blurring faces and license plates to argue the company knew better, and should’ve blurred everything, up to and including a naked man’s bottom.
The court cleared the telecom and news outlets that helped spread the image, essentially categorizing them as accidental whistleblowers, which is a lot more praise than they deserve for non-consensually broadcasting a picture of a nude man.
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