If you felt that Google Street View violated your privacy, wait until you’ve got one of these hovering over your back porch.
The German business magazine Wirtschaftswoche reported over the weekend that Microdrones, a company based in the city of Siegen, Germany, has sold at least one of its flying surveillance robots to the search giant for testing. Sven Juerss, Microdrones’ chief executive, told the magazine that the radio-controlled devices–four rotor helicopters about a meter across–could be helpful in Google’s mapping projects, and that he think there’s a good chance Google will buy more of the airborne bots.
I’ve asked Google for confirmation of Wirtschaftswoche’s report. If it holds true, Google may still be using the drones for a silly one-off experiment–remember the Street View snowmobile?–rather than as a large-scale fleet of floating cameras.
But even if the Microdrones are intended for mere experimentation, the suggestion of flying Google drones would still almost certainly set off another round of protest from privacy advocates, particularly in Europe, where Google Street View photography has faced years of criticism.
Given that less than three months have passed since Google admitted that it had accidentally collected data from thousands of Wifi networks with its Street View cars, and that it still faces a legal probes in more than three dozen states, this is probably not a new toy that the company needs.
By Andy Greenberg
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