Since then, Street View has been one of our most used and talked about Google Maps features - having been integrated with real estate sites, appeared in news stories, and used to help both Australians and visitors plan their trips around the country.
But Street View is most useful useful when the imagery is up-to-date and reflective of what you'd see if you visited an area in person ... which is why we're sending the Street View fleet back out on the road.
Starting from next month in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra, Adelaide, Perth and parts of Tasmania, we'll be doing our best to cover as many of Australia's public roads as we can during this summer. So if you're in the right place at the right time, you might spot one of our clearly marked Street View cars (like the one below) in your neighbourhood.
We also work hard to improve our products as much as we can, and so the images we're collecting this time will be crisper than before - making Street View even more useful when using it to find that restaurant you've forgotten the name of, or when reading street signs on Street View when following driving directions in Google Maps. It will also make our face-blurring technology even more accurate, because faces and license plates will be easier for our blurring technology to recognise.
You can see an example of what we're talking about by checking out the latest Street View imagery collected in Canada ... look at the remarkable fine detail of the stonework on the beautiful Basilique Notre-Dame.
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The new Australian imagery will be available sometime within the next year, and while we don't have a more specific timetable to share right now, we'll be sure to keep you updated on this blog. And in case you were wondering ... unfortunately we can't let you know exactly when we'll be in your street, because it's such a large project and would be too challenging to coordinate. You'll just need to keep the lawn mowed for the next few months! However, you can see what general areas we're in at this site.
If you're ever uncomfortable with an image that appears in Street View, whether in the existing imagery or in the new imagery once it launches, it's a simple matter to have it blurred or removed - simply click 'Report a Problem' at the bottom of any image, and follow the easy steps.
We do have one more Street View update to share, and that's in relation to our policy around storage of Street View images. We retain Street View images on our databases so we can do things like improve our blurring technology, and check our maps against the images so that we don't give you bad driving directions - for example, checking to see if a street has 'no entry' signs.
We announced earlier this month that we will permanently blur images that we retain for internal use within one year of their publication on Street View. This means that, long term, the only copy we keep will be the one in which faces and license plates are blurred. We think one year strikes a good balance between protecting people's privacy and our ability to reduce mistakes in blurring, as well as use the data we have collected to build better maps products.
Stay tuned for more updates over the coming months, and in the meantime, why not use Street View to find a great location for your upcoming summer holiday? I think this spot will do me just fine ...
