Policeman Caught Butt Naked by Google Street View Wins Lawsuit Against Tech Giant

An Argentinian policeman won a lawsuit against Google after being caught completely naked on Google Street View.

The man levied a lawsuit against the tech giant for harm done to his dignity after he was captured naked from behind by a Google camera despite standing behind a nearly 7 foot fence for cover. The incident occurred in 2017 in a small Argentinian town.

Furthermore, the camera captured his house number and street name, which spread across the internet after the story went viral, according to CTV News.

The man indicated that he was subjected to ridicule and mockery at work because of the incident.

He initially filed a lawsuit last year, which was dismissed by a different court who blamed the man for “walking around in inappropriate conditions in the garden of his home.” Google as well stated that the wall the man had been behind was not high enough.

However, upon appealing the suit, new judges decided the man’s dignity had, in fact, been violated, and awarded him the equivalent of $12,500 in Argentine pesos.

“This involves an image of a person that was not captured in a public space but within the confines of their home, behind a fence taller than the average-sized person. The invasion of privacy… is blatant,” they wrote.

The judges said “there is no doubt that in this case there was an arbitrary intrusion into another’s life.”

The judges further noted that there was “no justification for (Google) to evade responsibility for this serious error that involved an intrusion into the plaintiff’s house, within his private domain, undermining his dignity.

“No one wants to appear exposed to the world as the day they were born.”

Furthermore, the court indicated that Google often blurs images of people’s faces and license plates when photographed by Street View cameras, acknowledging their duty to prevent harm to people that are included in their images.

However, in this case “it was not his face that was visible but his entire naked body, an image that should also have been prevented.”