Mystery solved: Google Maps blurred the face of dogs for a reason

Google Maps, in addition to having a world map that helps you locate, know where there is traffic or know train and bus schedules, allows you to see the streets (Street View) as if you were walking around the place. When Google does the visual capture of sites there are people, who blur their faces for privacy, however, it has drawn attention that technology is also doing so with animals.

People have been wondering why to blur the face of pets, do dogs also need to take care of their privacy?

It was Reddit users who identified that Google Maps has been blurring the faces of some furry, so that they supposedly cannot be identified by users when they use the Street View tool.

This year in Spain the Law on Animal Protection was passed, so some thought that it was something local and that Google had done this to comply with the new regulations, however, it turned out that it is a measure that goes more on the technological side than on the protection of animals.

Google's reason is that Street View content is created from a 360° video. In these, to save some manual labor, they have applied Artificial Intelligence algorithms that recognize faces and license plates. When they are detected, the software immediately blurs them.

In this way, Google's algorithm has just begun to blur the faces of animals. Not so much because of their concern that they are recognized, but as a collateral action to their way of working.

“Since we created Street View content from 360 video recordings sent by users, we applied our algorithms to automatically blur faces and license plates,” says Google, according to British newspaper The Mirror.

Still, some have questioned whether this algorithm includes the faces of animals, because although some consider their dogs and cats as part of their family and even “children”, their faces physically have nothing to do with that of humans.

Given this, it could be explained that some users may have requested that their pet's face be deleted so that it does not appear visible in Street View.

“When users send non-video content, we don't apply blur technology automatically, but users can use the blur tool in the Street View app if they want to apply blur to their own photos [...] If you find your face, license plate, or home in a user post and want the image removed, use the “report an image problem” feature. That is, users can also request that something that makes them uncomfortable be blurred.

This would explain why there are some dogs that appear in Street View with their trunk faded and others appear completely visible. Even if Google's algorithm were wrong, it is not a new regulation for the protection of animal privacy.

Even so, it hasn't stopped Reddit users from joking with the blurring of furry faces with comments such as: “Anyway, dogs recognize each other by their butts”, among others.

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