Google’s Street View service got off to a bumpy start in the UK as privacy campaigners tried to block Google’s car-mounted cameras from photographing Britain’s streets. Now, Google is heading off the beaten track.

The internet company has loaded its 3-D Street View cameras on to rickshaw-style tricycles in an effort to capture national landmarks, monuments and sights that cannot be viewed from a car.

The pictures will form part of Street View, a mapping service from Google that gives 360-degree views of the country’s biggest cities, allowing people to take virtual tours from their computers or mobile phones.

Google said that he tricycles landed in Britain yesterday, and will spend the next few weeks capturing a number of famous locations, including Stonehenge, the Angel of the North and Loch Ness. The spots were chosen after tens of thousands of people voted for them in a public poll.
Hundreds of thousands of people logged on to Street View when it went live earlier this year. But campaigners began a legal action against it, claiming that the images were an invasion of privacy. The action was unsuccessful.

Sceptics warned yesterday that any abuses of the service could reignite legal claims against the company.

“Off-road, Google must show even greater respect for privacy that on the street,” said Tom Brake MP, the Liberal Democrats’ home affairs spokesman. “If they don’t, they may capture more than they bargained for as they pedal silently along our remotest lanes and cycleways.”

Some worried that the trike cameras might be able to peer over garden fences and snoop into areas of the home that were previously unviewable. But Google denied this, saying that the focus was firmly on public landmarks.

“The trike is only going to be used for interesting tourist spots, not heading down boring, narrow streets,” said a Google spokesperson. “Later on, it could be used on pedestrianised high streets, but only with approval.”

The trike has already been used in other countries to take pictures of landmarks such as the Trevi fountain in Rome. But in Britain, the “superfit” Google cyclists who will ride the 114-kilogram vehicle across rugged terrain face a race against time and the weather.

The UK launch of Street View was delayed for months because of Britain’s rainy climate, as Google’s cameras only work in fine weather. Only if the forecast remains clear will the Google trike be able to capture the tourist destinations before the summer is out.

In the days after the Street View launch, Google was forced to remove hundreds of pictures, following breach-of-privacy complaints from scores of people. Among the pictures removed were a man vomiting on a pavement, one leaving a sex shop and another being arrested. Sir Paul McCartney was among the celebrities who asked to have pictures removed.

Villagers in Broughton, Buckinghamshire, even formed a human chain to stop the Street View car entering its quiet roads, forcing the driver to make an abrupt U-turn, leaving the village off the mapping service.

But Street View continues to expand rapidly, with Google’s cars being spotted in various towns and cities that have not yet been added to the mapping service.

Readers of Times Online were asked recently where they had spotted the Street View car, and replies came in from Winchester, Preston, Chelmsford and Ipswich. Google said it will update Street View with new cities in the coming months.

Coming to Street View soon

Stonehenge, Wiltshire

Millennium Stadium, Cardiff

Angel of the North, Gateshead

Loch Ness, Scotland

Eden Project, Cornwall

Warwick Castle, Warwick

Bamburgh Castle, Northumberland