The news is making the round that Google has been indicted to pay a 1.000.000,00 Euros’ fine for the Street View’s “privacy infringement” under Italian Privacy Act. But (at least in this case) Google didn’t violate the Italian Laws and the Data Protection Authority did a blatant mistake: let’s see why.
1 – Google has not been investigated under “privacy” law, the relevant statute being the Data Protection Act (as I wrote, there is no superimposition between the two legal concepts);
2 – The Data Protection Act, being an enforcement of the EU Directive 95/46/CE only handles “personal data”, i.e. data that either identify a natural person or make a natural person identifiable;
3 – As the Italian Supreme Court said more than once – and so did the same Data Protection Authority ? – outdoor there is no reasonable privacy expectation,
Then, as soon as Street View shots pictures in open spaces and doesn’t identify people, there is no “privacy” infringement.
But this is just a conclusion drafted by interpreting the law. Real life is a horse of different colour.