De-Googling Yourself: Hide in Plain Sight
It’s not just governments that have problems hiding from the modern panopticon of satellites, aircraft, and ground-based cameras: Private citizens, too, are exposed. “You don’t have exclusive rights to your property from the street or from above,” says UCSB geography professor Keith Clarke. “Anybody who wants can take a photograph of your house. Many groups are doing exactly that.”
So is there a way to hide from the infinite reach of Google Earth? You could choose to live someplace that people don’t usually want to see in high resolution: a rural or sparsely populated area far from urban centers, international borders, and major points of interest. You could live underground, in a subway tunnel or a cave. Even in the suburbs, you could live under a canopy of trees. To avoid having video images of your house popping up on Google Street View, meanwhile, the best protection could be surrounding your property with a very high fence.
Your house is not the only thing that could show up online: Street View captures full-face shots of private citizens who happen to amble into the field of vision of its voracious video cameras. So to keep your face out of the database, stay alert. If you happen to see the telltale mounted videocam of Google Street View (it can be atop any kind of vehicle from a subcompact to a minivan), shield yourself with a sweatshirt hood, a newspaper, or even your hands.
There is one residence on the planet famously obscured by Google Earth: the Naval Observatory, official home of the vice president of the United States. Yet even Dick Cheney can’t escape the long arm of the Internet—a clear image of the Naval Observatory is available on Yahoo.
