Search engine giant Google’s controversial Street View service has earned itself a slap on the wrist by the UK government after it was discovered that the company had managed to take photographs of secret government establishments and posted them on the internet.
However, the company has now been ordered to remove some of the photographs as they breached the breached the Official Secrets Act, that prohibits ‘loitering, photography, sketching’ of secret intelligence buildings.
According to a report on the Daily Telegraph, Street View had posted quite a detailed collection of the secret British military and research buildings including the Special Air Services (SAS), Special Boat Services, Mi5 headquarters and other top-secret research locations and buildings.
Interestingly, all of the above mentioned buildings have put a warning sign outside there entrance, prohibiting photography or imaging of any kind. However, Google chose to photograph these secret buildings any ways, happily ignoring the laws of the country, in which it has a 95 percent share in the search engine market.
More importantly, several government representatives fear that the photographs posted on Street View, can be used by terrorists and other anti-social elements to plan violent and disruptive acts of terrorism.
