International Working Group on Data Protection in Telecommunications

Computers have the capacity to bring together, and facilitate easy access to, information from a range of sources including public registers. When taken with such developments as Geographical Information Systems, which allow referencing by location, and digital imaging, this can allow the easy retrieval of a great deal of information by reference to an address or map reference. This presents a growing threat to the privacy of private citizens. A recent development is the systematic collection of digital images of dwellings to create building databases of cities for commercial purposes. While there are important and legitimate applications for Geographical Information Systems (GIS), and digital images of buildings, e.g. for planning purposes the position of data subjects with regard to the commercial use of these databases need to be strengthened.

For example in several countries companies are currently using mobile digital cameras mounted on minivans to collect images of all buildings in major cities. The data may be pressed on CD-ROMs and may be offered to fire brigades, police, and emergency services to enable them to prepare for their operations. It is however self-evident that such a database may be used for commercial purposes as well. The images may be linked to house numbers, names, and addresses of owners or inhabitants for scoring and risk assessment purposes (condition of the building, ranking of neighbourhoods) by banks and insurances and for direct marketing. The data could be used by TV or for planning purposes of carriers (delivery firms, taxis, etc.). They are often linked to data collected by satellite (Global Positioning System - GPS -) and they can be used to generate realistic digital city maps and to form a new generation of Geographical Information Systems. Although at present depending on the system used there may be problems of storage capacity and speed which prevent these data being put on the Internet at reasonable costs, that is likely to change.

It should be made clear that a total scan of all buildings in a city or a country will involve the processing of personal data since much of the information relates to natural persons who are identifiable by factors specific to their physical, economic, cultural, and social identity in a data filing system (Art. 2 a) and c) of Directive 95/46/EC) and may be linked directly or indirectly to directories. Therefore the creation of image data bases of this kind falls within the scope of national data protection laws in accordance with the EC Data Protection Directive. Where this is not the case already, national legislation should at least provide the data subject with a right to object against the systematic collection and storage of such image data referring to his dwelling for commercial purposes. The fact that this information is to some extent already in the public domain does not exclude it from the application of data protection laws. In addition the publication of such databases may cause security problems to the data subjects (i.e. owners, tenants or inhabitants). There is a difference between an individual taking pictures of a specific building for personal reasons and a company systematically collecting images of all buildings in a city for commercial purposes. In particular the data subject must have the right to object at any given time to these data to be put on the Internet or other electronic media (e.g. CD-ROM).