Forget about all of those ubiquitous police surveillance cameras in your city: the new sheriff in town is that shifty Google Maps camera wheeling through your neighborhood.
Recently, a property owner in Canada was charged with illegal removal of trees after a Google camera helped capture the evidence, according to CanWest News Service.
Last May in Vancouver, Margaret Burnyeat allegedly hired a company to remove 23 cedar, cypress and evergreen trees from two adjacent lots she owned. Neighbors alerted the police, who found some stumps that hadn’t yet been removed.
Luckily for the city, one of Google’s Street View cameras — strapped to cars and driven through neighborhoods to photograph high-resolution, 360-degree images that are then linked to Google’s online mapping tool — caught some of the culprits in action.
The Google camera just happened to be passing through the neighborhood when the axing occurred and caught a truck on the site, as well as workmen and a row of fresh tree stumps.
Authorities say they’re uncertain whether they’ll use the Google image in their prosecution.
“Our city’s legal department is aware of that. How they will use that as evidence, I’m not clear. But it is an interesting new dimension, perhaps, of legal evidence,” a city spokeswoman told the news service.
The property was later listed for sale in September for $1,648,000, with a notation that there were “no big trees” on the lots. Burnyeat, her daughter and the tree cutter they hired have all been charged with violating the city’s tree law.
The law requires a permit to remove any tree above a certain size. Burnyeat had obtained a permit to remove only two of the 23 trees. The fine for illegal removal ranges between $500 and $20,000 per tree.
Ironically, Canadian authorities have been some of the most resistant to the presence of Google’s controversial cameras in streets. The company launched its Street View service in parts of the U.S. and Canada in 2007 and have since expanded to 12 other countries.
But after the Canadian privacy commissioner and others raised questions about whether the roaming cameras were legal, because Google collected identifiable images of people without their consent, the company implemented an automated feature that blurs faces and license plates. The company will also consider removing some images from its service upon request from the public or governments.
Source : www.wired.com
Peraturan Pemda setempat yang melarang penduduk untuk melakukan penebangan pohon baik di properti milik sendiri maupun umum tanpa seizin Pemda berujung ditangkapnya oknum yang melanggar peraturan tersebut dengan hasil jepretan google camera sebagai alat bukti.
Canggih ya.. kapan ya di Indonesia bisa begitu. Pasti orang-orang takut melakukan tindakan kriminal, tapi serem juga klo kita lagi ngupil di jalanan gak sadar di liatin orang-orang pake google camera...gak bisa jaim lagi deh..hehe
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