Google’s Dead End, or: on Street View and the Right to Data Protection

May a company photograph the daily lives of people all over the world, store those photos, and publish them on the internet? This article assesses which obligations Google has to fulfil in order to respect the European data protection rules. The focus lies on three questions. First, which data processed for the Street View service are personal data? Second, does Google have a legitimate ground for processing personal data? Third, does Google comply with its transparency obligations and does it respect the rights of the data subjects, specifically their right to information?