Living in Hong Kong

In case you see a car with a camera mounted on its roof roaming around Hong Kong, be aware. This could be one of Google cars that will be making rounds in the city, taking photos and immortalizing Hong Kong's streets through StreetView, a feature of Google Maps. United States, New Zealand, Australia, Japan and France have had successful albeit controversial launches of StreetView in the past. This year Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau are scheduled to follow.

I wonder how much effort will be devoted on reviewing images captured in the camera. My previous guess is that it's not that much. Google published images that included a naked woman and a man heading to an adult shop. So be careful, Google StreetView may capture the act of pickpocketing, wrong parking or littering.

Issues on privacy are apparently addressed. Google confirmed that it will blur sensitive information captured on camera such as license plates for cars and people's faces. So that would mean any amount of smiling will be rendered useless.