Google launches Street View in Hungary

Google announced the Hungarian launch of Google Street View, an online service that offers panoramic street-level imagery, at a press conference in Budapest on Tuesday. Google Magyarország chief Edina Heal said it was hoped Google Street View would bring more visitors to Hungary and boost domestic tourism as well. The service covers cities and villages all over Hungary, as well as the capital. Heal said Google's vehicle-mounted cameras would return to Hungary in May to ensure the freshest and most accurate images. Hungary is the 50th country in which Google has launched the service. Google started collecting imagery for the service in Hungary in four years ago, but stopped after the data protection commissioner at the time expressed concerns on the matter. Two years later, the commissioner said Google could continue the project as long as it respected rules on data protection. Early this year, Hungary's National Data Protection and Freedom of Information Authority (NAIH) formulated a position on the service's introduction in Hungary that ensures the public good is served while doing no harm to the private sphere, the authority's chairman Attila Péterfalvi said at the time. People's faces and licence plates are blurred in the Google Street View images, making them unrecognisable.