Katherine Jenkins Are Blurred On Street View
Now you see it... now you don't: Tony Blair's London home has been blurred out on Google Street View
Online map shows homes and buildings on almost every street in the world Lily Allen's Cotswold home and Fred Goodwin's mansion can't be seen Google says it has always been possible for those with 'compelling case' to have images of their homes removed There has been an increase in requests to remove data from search archives after European 'right to be forgotten' ruling
Homes owned by a string of celebrities have vanished from Google’s Street View Map following draconian European privacy laws, it emerged yesterday.
Mansions owned by Sir Paul McCartney, former Prime Minister Tony Blair and singer Katherine Jenkins are included in those that have disappeared from the controversial online tool.
The popular map feature allows users to view homes, buildings and areas along almost every road in the world on a computer screen.
But following a landmark ruling in a European court in favour of people’s ‘right to be forgotten’, the computer programme has seen dozens of requests from the rich and famous to have their homes removed.
Normal scene: How the London home belonging to Mr Blair (right),
which is protected by police, normally looks
A mansion owned by Sir Paul McCartney are included in those that have vanished from Street View
The house of former Beatles star McCartney can now not be seen on the 3-Dimensional online map, despite most of the London street that it is on being visible.
A click of the mouse to show the west London home of Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page also comes up against a blank. Street View users are instead left having to view the distinctive property from a long distance away – blocking out any of the home’s features.
Hidden: The Cotswolds mansion owned by pop star Lily Allen (left) is hidden from the
public eye of Street View, as is the Surrey home of Katherine Jenkins (right)
Privacy: Street View users can only view Katherine Jenkins' mansion from far away - and parts are blurred
The same barrier is in place at the Surrey home of Welsh mezzo-soprano Katherine Jenkins. This is despite it being seen by millions of people when it featured in a series of the BBC One’s Apprentice.The world’s biggest search engine has also blurred out the £5million Georgian townhouse in central London where the former Prime Minister Tony Blair and wife Cherie live.
Blair, who has made millions of pounds trading off his image and former office since leaving Downing Street, moved to the property, where he is continually protected by a police guard, in 2004.
The Cotswolds mansion owned by pop star Lily Allen and her husband Sam Cooper is also hidden from the public eye of Street View.
It comes as the disgraced former Royal Bank of Scotland banker Fred Goodwin’s £3.5million Edinburgh mansion was revealed to have disappeared from the Google application last month.
Goodwin, who was stripped of his knighthood, was held up as a figurehead for the bank’s disastrous crash in 2008 and the epitome of capitalist excess in the UK.
A Google spokesman confirmed that it has always been possible for users with a ‘compelling case’ to convince them to remove images of their homes.
But it has been hit by a huge increase in requests to remove data from its search archives after European judges ruled in favour of citizens’ ‘right to be forgotten’.
The legal decision means that companies holding vast quantities of data - such as search engines - can be forced to take down information which is deemed ‘inadequate, irrelevant or excessive’.
It also allows people to suppress embarrassing information about their pasts if it is no longer relevant.
Services such as Google Street View are thought not be covered by the ruling.
Google has already disclosed that it has been asked by MPs, celebrities and public figures to have search results removed. It has employed a team of workers to evaluate each request.
As seen on screen: The popular map feature allows users to view homes, buildings and
areas along almost every road in the world on a computer screen
Removal: A Google spokesman confirmed that it has always been possible for users
with a 'compelling case' to convince them to remove images of their homes
The Mail’s website, MailOnline has also received notification from Google of which links it has decided to remove.
They include a story about Dougie McDonald, who was a Scottish top-flight football referee who was found to have lied about his reasons for granting a penalty in a Celtic v Dundee United match; a story about Tesco workers posting stories on social media attacking their workers; and a story about a Muslim man who accused Cathay Pacific, the airline, of refusing to employ him because of his name.
The stories have not been removed by MailOnline, which described the move as similar to ‘burning books in a library’.
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