Google Street View cars banned in Greece

Like the Brits, Greeks aren't keen on Google's Street View project, which essentially offers a virtual tour of the world, or as much of it as the corporation can manage, anyway (currently nine countries are covered, with more in progress).

But citizens of the Hellenic Republic aren't just chasing down cars, they're flat out banning them, evidently for fear of encouraging "Orwell's hell" as a plausible future:

"We are not going to allow our country to become a Big Brother society," an Hellenic Data Protection (HDP, the organization behind the ban) official stated anonymously.

The watchdog group isn't entirely opposed to Google's idea -- they say if "additional information" and much more solid guarantees the service is not an invasion of personal privacy were given, it could be done. Details on storage life of images and informing residents of their rights were they liable to be photographed would be some of their demands; currently the two are in a "dialogue" about where to go from here.

For those that are for or neutral on Street View, the argument is typically, "What the difference between this and walking down the street and taking a picture?" The watchdog's response is simple: "Photographs are not normally made available globally, and therefore there is no risk of violation of personal data." While of course anyone could publish their photo online, not everyone gets as many hits as Google, and restrictons can apply.

Greek leftist Yannis Papadopoulos agrees with HDP, remarking: "Privacy as a concept or even word may not exist in our language but all this snooping is simply Orwellian. We won't let it pass."