German geodata industry submits voluntary code of privacy to Berlin

Mar 1, 2011, 15:31 GMT

Hanover, Germany - Germany's digital industry submitted a voluntary code of privacy Tuesday to the country's government, a response to a public outcry last year against a Google service that published images of people's homes.

Google's Street View panorama photo service was the most well- known of a series of geodata products, an area in which dozens of German companies have invested. Geodata involves collecting images and other geographical data for services, particularly in the navigation and mapping fields.

But many feared the sector might be banned because of the widespread fear among Germans of snooping.

Bitkom, the federation representing the digital businesses, handed over the draft code of good practice to Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere at the CeBIT trade fair in Hanover, Germany.

Maiziere welcomed the move, which was signed by Google and seven other companies.

'The code is a sign of greater transparency by German business and international corporations,' he said.

The code includes an undertaking to create a single website that discloses what information has been collected about every town in Germany, explains how Germans can file objections to the data gathering, and offers links to sites where they can complain.

Bitkom president August-Wilhelm Scheer said there were intense negotiations with Google's headquarters in the United States before the terms were agreed.

Last year, Google deleted images of entire blocks of flats in Google Street View, sometimes at the request of individual tenants.

De Maiziere defended Google Tuesday, saying 'Facades of buildings are about as public as it gets.' He said Germany recognized that geodata would become a major business and did not want to ban it.

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