One year after its debut in the United States, Google's Street View has arrived in Japan, where it is already drawing criticism. Despite the company's generally positive image in this country, bulletin board threads [ja] and blogs [ja] are filled with comments questioning the way Google has rolled out its latest service. In the past few days, the CEO of a major Internet services company has spotted his own wife [ja], others have found images of men urinating outdoors, and others have caught couples entering love hotels [ja] (not to mention birds in full flight). All of this has raised serious privacy concerns [ja].
But as much as reaction has focused in other countries on private information such as license plates and personal identity, in Japan it is as much the less obvious cases of privacy infringement that provoke a reaction: seeing people's clothes out on the line [ja], open windows where robbers could break in [ja], or cars parked in the parking lot [ja].
One blogger, noting the cultural differences between the United States and Japan, realized that there was a need to explain to people at Google in the U.S. what was happening in Japan, and why the company — which generally has a very positive reputation locally — had provoked such strong opposition with Street View. The blogger is IT professional Osamu Higuchi (樋口理) at Higuchi.com, who wrote a post in his blog on August 7th titled “Letter to the people at Google” which starts:
ストリートビューを使ってみて、やはりこれは何か言っておかなくてはいけないような気がしてきたので、書きます。ひょっとして、このサイトがGoogle 八分になって検索空間から消えるようなことがあったら、この記事のことを思い出してください。
As soon as I tried out Google's Street View, I had the feeling that I had to make a comment on it, so I decided to write [this post]. If by some chance this site falls out of favor with Google and disappears from search engine results, please remember what was written here.
最初にことわっておきますが、僕は Google のことが大好きです（みんな大好きだよね）。日本の Infoseek を作るときにゴールとして思い描いていた「世界中の Web に雑然と散らばっている情報と知識を、秩序立てて整理して、だれでも必要な到達できるようにすれば、世の中が大きく変わる」という、僕らは実現できなかった夢を、しっかり会社のビジョンとして掲げて確実に実現している姿を、本当にうらやましく思います。
Now, let me start by saying that I actually really like Google (everybody likes them, no?). While I was involved in the creation of the Japanese Infoseek, I always felt envious of Google, a company that presented, as their vision, a dream that we were never able to attain. This was the dream that “if all the information and knowledge scattered all over the world on the Web could be organized in an orderly way, so that anybody could access it whenever they needed to, then the world would undergo a major change”. This was a dream that Google managed to realize.
でもね、この日本でのストリートビューは、僕は生理的にダメ。ここまで無邪気に踏み込んではいけないと思うのです。
きっと、セルリアンタワーの中の人も同じように感じていると信じて、なぜこれがダメなのか、海の向こうの人にも分かりやすいように説明を試みますんで、聞いてください。で、リエゾンとして、正しいローカライズについて、きちんと向こうの人を説得してくれるとうれしいです。
But you know what? This Japan Street View, it just feels instinctively completely wrong to me. You can't play innocent and go this far.
I'm sure that the people in the
Cerulean Tower [where Google is headquartered in Japan] are feeling the same way, and are also trying to explain to people overseas in an easy-to-understand way what is wrong [with Street View], so please listen. And I would be grateful if you guys, acting as liasons, could properly convince the people over there of how to correctly localize [this service].
ご検討をお願いしたいことはひとつだけ。
I ask for you to consider just one thing.
In the following, Higuchi is addressing the people at Google in the U.S.:
日本の都市部の生活道路をストリートビューから外してもらえませんか
Could you please remove the residential roads of Japan's urban areas from Street View?
以下にその理由を書きます。
Below I list the reasons [why this is necessary].
日本の都市部の生活道路は生活空間の一部で、他人の生活空間を撮影するのは無礼です
The residential roads of Japan's urban areas are a part of people's living space, and it is impolite to photograph other people's living spaces
米国、特に西海岸に住んでいる人は自宅のプライベート空間とパブリックな空間の境目は、所有権的にも精神的にも公道と私有地の間にあると思います。というか、みなさんの感覚では公道に面した自分の庭のほうが公的な空間で、自分の庭をきれいにしていないとコミュニティの景観上よろしくないと思っていますよね？
In the United States, and particularly in the case of people living on the west coast, the boundary line between private space and public space, both in terms of actual ownership and in terms of the way people think, is in the boundary line between the public road and privately-held land. In fact, I think that you all will agree that your home's garden, which faces the street, actually feels itself more like a public space, and that not keeping your front yard tidy ruins the look of the community, right?
ところが日本の都市部生活者は逆で、家の前の生活道路、いわゆる路地のほうが感覚的には自分の生活空間の一部、庭先なのです。日本の都市部では、家の前の公道を掃いたり、打ち水をしたり、雪かきをしたりするのが居住者のつとめとされています。下町を歩いているとよくわかるけれど、家の前の路地に鉢植えとかちょっとした物置とかをはみ出して置いてあるのもその感覚の表れです。
For people living in urban areas in Japan, though, the situation is quite the opposite. The residential street in front of a house, the so-called “alleyway” (roji/路地), feels more like a part of one's own living space, like a part of the yard. In urban areas in Japan, sweeping the road in front of one's home, sprinkling water over it, shoveling snow off it, these are all considered to be the responsibility of the resident. Wandering around the older parts of the city, you'll see evidence of this way of thinking in the potted plants and little storage rooms crowded out [onto the street].
僕らはそういう路地を歩くときには、路地の周りの家のほうをじろじろ見つめることはしません。ちょっと横を向くと、文字通り鼻の先はだれかの生活空間なので、そういうところをのぞき込むのは失礼なことだという意識が働いていると思うんです。
When we walk along an alleyway like that, we don't stare at and scrutinize the houses along the way. If you look away [from the road] even a little bit, you find someone's living space literally right in front of your nose. It is for this reason, I think, that we have this awareness that peeping at these kinds of places is something that is actually quite rude.
日本人がアメリカに家を建てるときに、日本の感覚で家の周りに塀をめぐらせて周りからひんしゅくを買うことがあるそうですが、日本の都市部の感覚では逆に通りを歩く人が塀の中をのぞき込むとひんしゅくを買います。
I've heard that when Japanese build houses in America, they do so in the Japanese way and surround their home with a fence, to the displeasure of people living nearby. The way that people in Japanese urban areas think, however, is very different, in the latter case it being people walking on the street, peeping beyond the fence, that draw frowns [from the locals].
もちろん、塀や垣根の隙間から中を覗こうと思えば覗けます。そういう行為は「垣間見」と言って、源氏物語の昔から、ちょっとはしたないこととされています。
この季節、なにかのはずみで、軒先で下着同然の格好で涼んでいるおじさんと目があったりします。そんなときも、その人が近所の風呂屋でのなじみとかだったら、ちょっと立ち話をするかもしれませんが、そうでもなければちょっと会釈をするような格好をしてそのまま目をそらし、お互いに見なかったことにする、というのが礼儀です。
Now of course, if you peep through gaps in the fence or hedge, you can peek inside [people's homes]. This kind of act is referred to in Japanese as “kaimami” [stealing a peek], and from back in the days of the “Tale of Genji”, it has always been considered to be in somewhat bad taste. At this time of year, [walking down these streets], your eyes will meet those of old men cooling themselves under the eaves wearing nothing but their underwear. If this person was someone familiar to you from the local bathhouse or something, then in a case like this you might strike up a conversation with them. If this was not the case, however, you would still nod and greet them, but then turn your eyes away and each pretend like you hadn't seen each other. This is the etiquette.
「公道からの風景だから公開を前提としているはずだ」ではなくて、「公道を通る者はその鼻先の生活空間はのぞき込んではいけない」というのが、日本の都市生活者のモラルなんです。
According to the morals of urban area residents in Japan, the assumption that “it is scenery [viewable] from public roads and therefore it must be public” is in fact incorrect. Quite the contrary, [these morals state that] “people walking along public roads must avert their glance from the living spaces right before their eyes”.
僕らの生活スタイルは、生活空間の様子を一方的に全世界に機械可読な形で公開するようにはなっていません
In our way of living, you do not unilaterally, and in a machine-readable form, lay open people's living spaces to the whole world
そういう文化ですから、東京の都市部で路地を歩きながら10メートルごとに360度周りを見回して歩く、なんていうことをやっていると、確実に30分以内に警察に通報されます。手にカメラでも持っていて通りからの風景を撮りためていたりしようものなら、僕の家のあたりのストリートビュー空白地帯なら職務質問の後、池上署か田園調布署にご同行を願われることうけあいです。
With this culture [of privacy], if you were to walk along a residential street in an urban area of Tokyo, every 10 meters surveying all 360 degrees of your surroundings, there's no question that you would be reported to the police within 30 minutes. Even just filming the scenery from the street with camera in hand, there's no question that if you tried to shoot the area not covered by Street View, you would be asked, after initial questioning, to come to either the Ikegami Police Station or the Den-en-Chofu Police Station.
生身の人間が路地から生活空間をじろじろ覗いているとやっかいなことになりそうなことは日本人なら直感的にわかるので、普通の人はそういうことをやりません。そのため、生活者側も路地から生活空間の様子が知れてしまうことに対してわりと無防備です。
Japanese people intuitively recognize that a flesh-and-blood human being peeking into people's living space from the alleyway results in trouble, so ordinary people don't do this kind of thing. It is for this reason that residents are comparatively defenseless against [people looking in] from the side of the road and learning everything about their living spaces.
ところが、ストリートビューを通して覗くのは、覗かれていることに気がつきませんから通報されることもありません。この非対称性が別の問題を引き起こします。
日本中の、いや、世界中の人が、ケーサツのお世話になるというリスクを負わずに、無防備な生活者の生活空間の様子を見ることができるということは、例えば侵入が簡単そうな構造の家屋を探したり、転売価値の高そうな自動車が公道に面した場所に駐車してある場所などを、誰もが通報されるリスクなしで下見できるようになってしまった、ということです。
On the other hand, nobody notices when someone peeks — or is peeked at — through Street View, and so it is not reported. This asymmetry gives rise to a different problem.
The capacity for people in Japan — or rather, people across the whole world — to look into the living spaces of defenseless residents, without any risk of being stopped by the police, makes it possible for anyone to carry out a preliminary inspection without any risk of being reported. This kind of inspection can be used for example in searching for houses with a configuration that is easy to break into, or in looking for places along the side of public roads where cars with high resale values are parked.
そりゃ、通りからじろじろ下見をする人がいれば通報されるはずだから、と安心して無防備に暮らしている我々が悪いのかもしれないけれど、この安心感が一方的に突然乱されるのは、どうにも納得がいきません。
A person was to do this kind of inspection from the actual street, they would be reported. Maybe it's a bad thing, but we live with a peace of mind in knowing that this is true, and therefore for this sense of security to be unilaterally and abruptly thrown out of order is completely unacceptable, however you look at it.
ややこしいことになる前に、ご自身のモラルで判断して行動してください
Before this problem gets more tangled, please make a decision and take action on this based on your own sense of morals
それにしても、ストリートビューとプライバシーの問題について、意外なほど日本の新聞が何も言わないのはなぜでしょうね。梅田本だか、アンチマイクロソフトのドグマか何かのせいで、彼らの中では「Google＝なんかわからんけど絶対善」ということになっているのかもしれません。右も左も、あの人たち思考停止しているのかな。
Despite this, however, why is that Japanese newspapers, to a surprising degree, have said nothing about this problem of Street View and privacy? Maybe it is because of Umeda's books [see note], or because of the anti-Microsoft dogma, but there seems to be a sense among these people that “we don't really know, but Google must anyway be an absolute positive”. Whether from the right or from the left, people seem to have completely stopped thinking.
[Note: Mochio Umeda (梅田望夫) is a well-known author of books on IT in Japan. See this translated interview for more information.] (note added August 12, 2008)
でも、近い将来、ストリートビューで下見をして空き巣とかクルマ泥棒をやった奴がきっと捕まって、その手口を供述すると思うんですけど、そのときになって突然鬼の首を取ったように「クルマ泥棒、インターネットで下見」とか書き立ててバッシングキャンペーンを始めるのも、その人たちです。そういうことになる前に、常識的なローカル社会のモラルに照らしたサービス設計をしていただきたいと心から願っています。
But in the near future, there will for sure be a case in which a street prowler or car thief is caught and testifies that they used Street View for preliminary inspection. When that time comes, it is these same people who will suddenly start a campaign triumphantly writing articles [with headlines like] “car thieves preview [crime site] on the Internet”. Before it comes to that, I am hoping dearly that you guys design a service reflecting the common-sense morals of local society.
繰り返しますが、私はみなさんの「世界中の情報を整理し、世界中の人々がアクセスできて使えるようにする」というビジョンを非常にすばらしいと思っていますし、それを実現していることを尊敬し、感謝しています。
I repeat, I consider your vision of “arranging the world's information in order to make it possible for people across the world to access it” to be something truly wonderful, and I greatly respect — and am thankful for — the fact that you have managed to realize [this goal].
でも、公開することを前提としていない生活空間の様子を勝手に公開されるのは、どうにも気持ちが悪い。僕らの「ほっといてもらう権利」をないがしろにしていて、どうも“evil”だと思えてしようがないのです。
To have one's own living space exposed to the whole world without ever having been asked about it beforehand, this however really makes me uncomfortable. It ignores our “right [to demand that] you leave us alone”, and comes off as nothing short of “evil”.
お願いですから、僕らのプライバシー感覚と防犯意識が、あなたがたのそれと同じようにアメリカナイズされるまでの間で結構ですから、日本の路地の様子をストリートビューから外していただけませんか。そのために、インターネットがほんの少しだけ不便なものになっても、僕は全然かまいません。
My request is thus, given that it will take considerable time before our sense of privacy and awareness of crime-prevention are Americanized to be more like yours, to remove Japanese alleyways [residential streets] from Street View. This will make the Internet ever so slightly less convenient, but for me that is no problem at all.
Thanks to Taku Nakajima for the suggestion to translate this article.
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[...] Salzberg of Global Voices Online has posted a translation of of an letter to Google by Japanese IT professional/blogger Osamu Higuchi. In the letter, Higuchi requests that Google [...]
Great post, thank you for taking the time to translate it.
I live in Australia, where Street View was released a few days ago. As in other countries with this Google feature we have had some complaints about the photographers having entered private property to get a better view of a building (such as schools in Melbourne).
This long article speaks painfully and respectfully about Japanese beliefs and contains alarming statements such as “Even just filming the scenery from the street with camera in hand, there’s no question that if you tried to shoot the area not covered by Street View, you would be asked, after initial questioning, to come to either the Ikegami Police Station or the Den-en-Chofu Police Station.”
This suggests that tourists must be filling Japanese jails, having made the mistake of filming their surroundings.
Secondly, how do Japanese people reconcile their nation’s participation in the First World and the global economy? It would seem that Google Japan must have some Japanese nationals in their local office. Would they not have raised any alarm bells for this alleged cultural transgression? Didn’t a single policeman see the Google cars with their very obvious cameras? There is something missing in the bigger picture.
@Ayesha:
Glad you liked the post!
@Ash:
Thanks for your comments. In fact there were many Japanese who questioned points that were made in Higushi-san’s letter, mostly in the Hatena bookmarks for the post (in Japanese). So you are certainly not alone in wondering why tourists are not filling Japanese jails for taking pictures of their surroundings (they are not).
For anybody interested in this topic:
More reactions to this post (in English) on this friendfeed thread.
I must admit, this particular reaction to Google Maps puzzles me. It reads very much as if the writer actually believes that Street View (and the general excess of detail on Google Maps in general) is fully accepted in other nations, where it is culturally more acceptable. As a person living in America, I feel that Google Maps provides a drastic excess of detail, too, and I’m not alone. I’ve heard plenty of similar complaints from other people who live here.
Going further, to painstakingly explain how peeking into a person’s home is considered impolite in Japan, where the implication is that there exist places where it is *not* considered impolite… seems a little excessive. I can assure you, a person peeking into another person’s home here is *plenty* suspicious, too!
The real revelation here, as far as I’m concerned, is the implicit assumption that Japan is fundamentally culturally different from the rest of the world. That may well be true, but this is not the case to use to prove that point. Additionally, there lies the accusation that America is the cultural outlier here, bringing their values into the rest of the world, and expecting everyone else to play along. I’ll reiterate: Americans are not particularly comfortable with wholesale breach of personal privacy either. Our public spaces are not, as a rule, monitored via closed circuit camera, we have tresspassing laws, and using a person’s likeness (read: photograph) without their permission can have legal ramifications, as well. Most of us are very unhappy with the recently-passed FISA legislation, too.
In summary, I fully agree with the complaints here about Google Maps, but find the cultural arguments superfluous and distracting. Enough people from a wide enough variety of locales have levied these same complaints that there’s no real need to taint them with divisive red herrings like “Japan is a unique culture unlike any other on Earth” or “America is culturally imperialistic”.
Ash:
As to why tourists aren’t crowding the jails, I really think it’s mainly because they don’t go off photographing urban areas so often. I once did, and by chance two police officers passed by me and may have seen me holding my camera in hand. I did my best to try and answer their questions in broken Japanese until my girlfriend arrived to the scene and sorted things out for me.
So I’d say that while it may be somewhat rare it definitely occurs, though I am aware of the fact that the police officers might have drawn their attention to me just because I’m suspicious in being a westerner in the first place, and a suburbian slum area is perhaps not a place for someone like that to be.
It’s also worth to note that westerners are often excepted from any set of social rules that one might find in Japan. They are not expected to know of these and that might be one reason why there are no or few tourists in jail in Japan. In my opinion this however does not lessen the damage that Google is causing with their Street View service.
V Lease:
First of all, I believe that Japan is at least somewhat culturally different frmo the rest of the world and that this is only somethign to be expected of an island-nation that has been completely isolated for the better part of some five hundred years. While I am studying Japan and it’s language, I might not be very unbiased in this, but I would like to believe that Japan is in fact different and deserves to be.
The Japanese society has been thorougly affected by a slightly altered version of Confucianism since way back and you still see traces of it today and I’ve never come across any culture with so much non-explicit etiquette and sets of rules that you are never told, but expected to know and follow, though being a westerner you are most often forgiven for your shortcomings. And one of these rules is apparently that you don’t peep into others homes from the street and you don’t even stand looking at them if you don’t have to.
I think this sounds reasonable, especially considering the fact that privacy in Japan is a more complicated matter than in other places of the world. I’m prepared to say it’s something unique. I can’t explain this notion very well, but to be able to have privacy in Japan you need to create this sort of imaginary bubble around you to shut everybody out. There is practically nowhere for you to go if you want to be completely alone other than your apartment and even then the walls are thin and you’d be lucky to not have a road or an alleyway immediately outside your front window. That’s why it strikes me as reasonable that you have a shared understanding that you don’t intrude on what little privacy other people have.
Correct me if I’m wrong but I believe Japan is one of the most densely populated countries on this planet. Though wikipedia might rank it as number 32:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_density
one should keep in mind that mountains cover 70% of Japan’s surface area and after distrubuting some of it to agriculture there’s really not much left to live on.
Secondly, regarding the notion that America is thought to impose their own culture and laws upon the rest of the world, well, isn’t that precisely what America has been doing for the last 50 years or more? One example is how currently the american musc industry tries to eliminate our right to integrity in order for them to preserve their business model. It’s happening right here in Sweden. While that being said, I do recognize that the American population require as much privacy as everybody else.
I also feel the strange cultural uniqueness claim in the post and I disagree with this. We have to keep in mind, that countries like Japan, but also Korea and China often tend to percept themselves as unique, original, deep in history,… some parts of their societies more than others, depending with whom you speak. This may be due to the fact that historically they did not interact often with other cultures for many thousands of years and are not very used to it. They often cite the proverb “When in Rome, do as Romans do”. But modern civilization is different thing and Japan, Korea, China are not Rome. Japan abandoned large part of its culture at the end of 19-th century and adopted many western values, which led to huge progress and also some wars. This is how samurais were forbidden swords and the cast structure was destructed. Traditionally societies in Japan, Korea and China were cast oriented - if your father was a samurai cast, you became samurai, if your mother was a prostitute cast, you became prostitute, if your father was a trader, you became trader. This is their culture. That simple… This is officially considered unacceptable nowadays. So large parts of “traditional culture” are missing these days. There is no point to pretend that this is “against the Japanese way”. There is no Japanese way. There is also no American way, BTW. 200 years ago there was slavery in the US and women were permitted to vote just about 100 years ago. There is also no “Arab way”, no “Islam way” and no Ben Laden way. To join the civilization some parts of Arab an Muslim societies will have to abandon some things considered “cultural” and sacred for them. This same thing happened in the Christian world and was named Reformation.
So please stop the claims for uniqueness. The world is converging. There are laws in Japan. If these laws were not broken, it is OK and as Google user I need this service when visiting foreign countries. I want this to be in their web page.
@Julian Stoev
Don’t want to get into an argument here, but I do take issue with your casting aside the world’s cultures as so many different “ways”.
It may not be easy to define, but there is certainly a “Japanese way” whether or not every single Japanese person adheres to it is a different issue. And I tend to think that that is a good thing personally.
I must admit, I can see the personal invasion issue up front, especially is a google truck goes into private property. But the statement that drivers, walkers, and bicycle riders cant look around as they drive a bit absurd.
I am an american living in Japan for the past 2 years and live in a quiet country/suburban part of Tokyo.
Foreigners do not fill the jails here because they took pictures. Stating that anyone with a camera looking at Japanese houses and wishing to share their experiences of Japanese style/culture with their loved ones shouldnt be a crime. I live in a tradional one-story house with 4 tatami rooms. I can tell you right now, that the local stores sell blinds AND bamboo blinds to prevent peeking eyes from seeing….and they’re used commonly in my neighborhood without much complaint. So the arguement that we should pick up our heads and look around seems…unreasonable.
Like I said before, I am an american and very interested in Japanese culture, architecture, houses, gardens, shrines, temples, countryside, schools, gov’t buildings, post offices, train stations, restaurants, onsens, rivers, apartment buildings, etc….you name it. Why? Because EVERYTHING I SEE IN JAPAN seems different than in the US.
Secondly, its hard enough to find local friends because many either do not speak english or do not wish to slaughter enlish(I dont care if they do). I speak Japanese enough to get around and have had more than one experience where I was pushed away because they didnt want to deal with me. Fortunately for me, and unfortunately for them, I spoke Japanese. To which they were suprised and werent able to use the excuse “I dont know english. Sorry.”
Thus, leaving myself to explore on my own, wondering about Japanese life and wondering what peoples’ lives are like outside of the Japanese who sign up for Enlish School. Its hard to get into any industry in Japan that isnt English teaching related. Thus, What can you do to overcome learning about Japanese industries? Read books, newspapers and watch news and TV.
But all this goes back to the post at hand, about how one cannot according to the original post go walk around and look around…particularly with a camera…even if you wish to simply remember the sight. Furthermore, in parts of Tokyo, the sheer amounts of signs with Kanji/romajii around presents a difficult hassle to a new learner of Japanese. Being able to stop, look around 360 and find where the train station, hostel, hotel, restroom is…is important.
My question back is: Is therefore illegal to take pictures from your own home? I see on a daily basis people taking pictures of airccraft near a US Air Base. Could one of them be a terrorist or supplying information? Maybe, but who knows? Does that make every single picture taker of aircraft a criminal due for inspection/interogation? I hope not, it would clog the jails.
My only concern of Google is that they establish rules of where that vehicle can go and establish areas of where photography is prohibited before hand as well as the procedures for taking photos. If they need to coordinate with local city/prefectural gov’t, then fine. However, its is already clear that some of the picture may or may not be invasive.
My bottom-line is: How can a foreigner take pictures of a different country in order to learn about it or share the experience while being expected to not look around and take pictures?
I’ve heard reports on how crime is attributed to foreign influence in Japan. To that, I can see its correlation since whereever non Japanese go crime is reported on the news. However, it takes a Japanese-on-Japanese rampage in Akihabara to makes headlines. Most other crimes seemlingly either go unreported or are a footnote.
To be honest, I had always thought Japanese life to be more intrusive than that of American lifestyle. The complaint of personal privacy amongst Japanese a bit odd. ONe of the biggest reason is what has already been stated: That more people live within one square mile over all than most people in america. That makes it hard to not know of something going on. One example, in america if I so as to hear my roomates or neighbors whether in an apartment or a house, I feel like complaining. However, he in Japan, I see and hear stories all the time about people being loud. Believe it or not, but I believe that to be more attibuted to the proximatey in which people live next to each other more than the reason that people are loud. I go to sleep everyday listening to people riding/walking by my house only because my house as well as many others are locted within a pebble throw of a public road. In american, where generally theres more space, the distance from my bed to the street is MUCH greater and I cannot usually hear people’s conversations at all.
When I first stepped foot on Japanese soil, I first realized that it would be highly unlikely that I would have as much privacy than I did in the states due the sheer amount of people within a given area than that of the US. Further, like previously mentioned about the Genji period, it seems all the tradional stories I’ve seen in Japan involve some of “eavesdropping” or peaking into someone’s home. Such acts against privacy I cannot remember at this moment in american stories or history. Furthermore, I do not see scores of peopletaking pictures of aircraft on any given day in America near american bases. The contrary is true here in Japan. In my eyes, its simply more or less due to perception that people here are more readily available to take pictures, eavesdrop, etc… The only thing anti-privacy wise in the US, is the paparozzi and the acts they pull to get a dime.
But these are my observations over the past 2 years here in Japan….and the point being made doesnt stand up well enough against anti-privacy in the US to me. I feel like I have much less privacy here than in the US. The use of StreetView doesnt prove anything to me, but the mere fact that people live so close to each other…..does….even without cameras.
I’ve lived in Japan for more than 24 years and thoroughly understand the author’s concerns. However, a quick look at Street View of my neighborhood showed only blurred faces of my neighbors and license plate numbers. Maybe other street views are in more detail, but I had the same results when checking the View near my local station. My impression was that Google did a wonderful job of clearly identifying streets and alleys, but seems sensitive to the worries and concerns of individual privacy.
Unfortunately, with so many Japanese carrying cell phones with high-definition cameras and increasingly quality video capabilities, Google street view would the least of my concerns. I dare say the busy-body oba-chan (elderly woman) in my neighborhood is a greater threat to privacy than anything Google could possibly imagine.
[...] I just finished this article on Japanese Reactions to Google Streetview entitled Japan: Letter to Google about Streetview. [...]
Kristian:
You like many other’s from nations around the world assume america, is filled with self-actualized intelligent americians who live, breath, and indentify themselves with a specific form of nation identity. The most accurate truth i’ve been able to determine after 27 years of living here is 1. There is no national identity, only extremely segmented factions of belief who’s strongest unificataions align to either political or theologic beliefs. 2. We do not have control over our political system or elected officials. It is merely a distraction for domestic and international populaces to rally toward while unilateral decisions are being made, and the political justification is arranged afterwards. Previous administrations tried HARD to continue the illusion, the present does not. Especially now.
While i recognize that Google’s international breach of privacy in pursuit of abosolute information retention brakes nearly all societies established’s norms for personal and public space, i do not agree with your declartion that one populace deserves more or less privacy than another. We are all humans on this planet, and we all have roughly the same dreams, desires, and ambitions.
Do not make the mistake of assuming those with influence, money, and power represent the entirety of the people from which they came.
I personally do not think Google Street View should stop what they’re doing. I do believe that they should remove the information from public view, and use it for internal purpoes only. 10-50 years from now a headsup display integrated tomtom utilizing a “vanilla” santized streetview will be invaluble. Right now, it’s disgraceful to nations, and their people.
This post and the comments make for interesting reading.
I would tend to echo most of what Julian Stoev’s comment is saying, though his English seems rather dodgy (the rule is: do not verb nouns, as is done in “percept” for “perceive”).
The Japanese way of life is arguably “unique”, mainly because Japanese society is relatively insular and stuck in an archaic social paradigm (including vestiges of Shintoism and emperor-worship), having never really gone through the baptism of fire of the Reformation and into an Age of Enlightenment. No, Japan rests rather on its “customs”, which must not - of course - be offended.
To Julian Stoev, I would suggest that he relies less on what he “thinks is a good thing” (based on no logical argument that I can see in the thread), and take a rational look around himself.
If he did he might observe that, as a general rule, wherever one finds that custom must be obeyed - and especially religious custom - one will tend to find fascism in disguise, usually as political/religious ideology/dogma. For example, the “female circumcision” (a euphemism for the horrifically barbaric practice of female genital mutilation) of 12 year old girls in the non-secular Muslim-dominated Egypt, and some other Muslim societies in Africa.
“Hey - it’s our custom. We’re doing no harm. Leave us alone if you don’t share our beliefs.”
Yeah, right.
If you think that this doesn’t apply in Japan, then consider this: The peace with Japan and the rest of the world might not have been so effective and long-lasting if the Americans had not identified and addressed two systemic causal problems in Japanese society - the Shinto religion and the emperor’s state rites, both being embedded in the Japanese paradigm, along with “patriotism”. The politicisation of Shinto was typified by a Japanese Ministry of Education ruling of 1932 which acknowledged that Shinto shrines were non-religious establishments for fostering patriotism. State Shinto became a mouthpiece for the militarist regime of the 1930s. After Japan’s defeat in 1945 the American Occupation authorities decreed Shinto’s disestablishment, ending State Shinto. The emperor’s state rites were recategorised as the private rites of the imperial family. End of problem - apparently.
The Invasion of Privacy by Google is offensive in many countries including the US, not just Japan. The problem is Google don’t care. We need laws to ban them from their constant invasions of personal privacy. They do it far too often the world over and they must be stopped.
“”"Before this problem gets more tangled, please make a decision and take action on this based on your own sense of morals”"”
… Morals? What’s that?? Never heard of that. We are doing business here, you know. If you do not like it - go to international court. Ha-ha-ha.
[/western-style-sarcasm]
Really reminded me of the Edo(?) times when Western trade ships tried to snatch something from Japan or contraband something illegal.
Austin:
I never meant to imply that the american population at large is trying to impose anything upon the rest of the world. I happen to regard multinational corporations and politicians as non-human or some other body detatched from the american population though they kind of represent America, you know?
I know that the people of America cannot be held responsible for Googles actions for example, and nor did I intend to. And I am fully aware that there is no true American identity, but that’s beside my point. Americas foreign politics are easily identifiable in my opinion …
But yeah, you have a point in that Google is Google and would be just as evil if they had come from Sweden for example. Street View is not the first nor last example of how they typically don’t care much for people’s right to privacy.
And I never meant to say that the Japanese have a bigger need for privacy or a bigger right to it, than other humans. I might have forgotten to think about this before I posted here, but I was mainly trying to point out that it’s a different situation in Japan. I’m not saying that it’s any worse or otherwise, in other parts of the world.
Bobby and Julian:
I reckon the need for laws to regulate these kind of actions but I wouldn’t be surprised if there aren’t any. That doesn’t make it any less acceptable though, in contrary to what Julian might be proposing.
I personally don’t find the “law” a good measurement of what is good and bad, allowed and not, in a society. People have to be able to think for themselves and it’s a sad truth that corporations like Google never give a rat’s ass about moral codes — they, along with virtually all other global corporations and politicians, measure the world in terms of profit.
And the notion of “if it’s not explicitly forbidden to do it’s a-ok” is just wrong.
Thanks for a great post. I’m very happy that the discussion has developed into a well-informed discussion about the nature of privacy in Japan.
Personally, I have to agree with Chip’s comment as well. With the amoral use of cell phones and tiny cameras, and the way online bulletin board sites are used to post pictures and personal information about people, I think Google Streetview is the least of Japan’s worries.
Any form of openness and discussion about social problems in Japan will benefit Japan in the longrun. If Streetview inspires people here to think about issues of privacy, personal space, and even identity, all the better.
@Julian Stoev: “There is no Japanese way. There is also no American way, BTW.”
Wonderfully said. The letter by Osamu Higuchi posted here, like nearly all entries in the “culturally opposite ways of thinking” category, is a bunch of assertion backed by NO PROOF. Concerned people everywhere in the world have pointed out his same privacy concerns about Google Street View. While millions more around the world – including in Japan! – aren’t concerned enough to say a word. Where’s the difference? Show me EMPIRICALLY.
As a resident of Japan for over 20 years, I get so tired of “we’re so different” claims backed by nothing more than the speaker’s desperate wish for it to be true. (Unfortunately, I fear that other people will pick up on Higuchi’s blather and shout “me too!”, just because it scratches that itch for “cultural difference” posturing. )
[...] Open Letter to Google [Japanese and English translation on Global Voices] [...]
I too think that the street view is much too invasive. There is a LOT of argument going on in America over this. Of course if street view is what “Google” is SHARING with us how much MORE do they NOT SHARE (from government satellites which have a much higher resolution and the ability to pierce buildings without lead)?
This is an invasion of privacy and it threatens our security to have it on the internet. We do not like it here.
You can’t stop Google by writing letters.
>>When that time comes, it is these same people who will suddenly start a campaign triumphantly writing articles [with headlines like] “car thieves preview [crime site] on the Internet”
But the Japanese media sure can, they just haven’t caught on yet. Google will be as well liked as the Korean criminal on the news when some bad shit really happens because of Street View.
And if anything, Google only learns the hard way, be it by totalitarian government intervention (communist China) or media shitstorms.
[...] culturais Jim O’Connell writes “Global Voices has a translation of an excellent open letter to Google by Osamu Higuchi, explaining that Street view is too invasive for Japanese traditional values when used in [...]
I find this discussion really quite amazing. Google Street view has never felt wrong to me and it is great to hear such opinions from diverse range of people.
I hope Google will listen to peoples concerns. The fact that they made this service available is a good thing, at least it creates this kind of discussion, which can then lead to better understanding of how people feel about their privacy/publicity in different societies.
This guy is a nut, just by this comment alone.
日本の都市部の生活道路は生活空間の一部で、他人の生活空間を撮影するのは無礼です
The residential roads of Japan’s urban areas are a part of people’s living space, and it is impolite to photograph a stranger’s other people’s living spaces
How many Japanese photographers have taken pictures of homes and buildings in residential areas. I myself
take a lot of photos in Japanese residential areas and never one, in my 12 years here have had a problem or police come up to me. I’ve even photographed houses in reisdential areas in front of a koban and the police never bothered me.
I think the guy simply has a stick up his butt and is not busy enough (like a typical Japanese salaryman) in his job, so he has to make comments like this.
Note: I live and work in Japan with a Japanese wife.
I am always intrigued by “culture deniers,” people who claim that cultural differences aren’t real or are so minimal they should be ignored. For the most part, this sentiment comes from a very Western, egalitarian mindset: we are all people, we are all equal, our differences don’t matter, let’s not talk about them. But differences are real and carry meaning. While there are many constants across the globe (and being uncomfortable about Streetview may well be one of them!) I would also add that people can arrive to the same conclusion through different paths, in this case object to Streetview for different reasons.
I personally find it offensive that someone has stood outside my house and taken a picture of it for the purpose of putting it on the internet and my wishes aren’t taken into consideration at all.
That is my house, I own it and I should have the final say on whether it appears or not. The other thing that really bothers me is it ultimately serves no purpose being on the internet! Nobody needs to know what my house looks like - that’s what the house number is for. You want to come and visit me, use the address I give you and a street directory.
Well I live in Japan, so I think I am slightly qualified to comment here.
First of all, of course people sake photos of urban areas, it’s more interesting than Suburban areas. Grass tends to look similar in all countries.
Second of all, the idea that it shouldn’t be allowed because it’s *Japan* is absurd. Outside is public property, and photos are allowed. If you don’t want someone to see or photograph something, *don’t* put it outside. That’s the law in Japan as well, and more importantly - it’s reality.
People take photos of main streets and back allies here all the time, and police don’t stop them. If they did, they wouldn’t have anything to charge them with anyway.
As for researching houses easy to break into, or expensive cars… well I am sure you just gave the criminals some great ideas with that one. It’s easy enough to walk down the street and notice this stuff though, without any suspicious behavior.
At the end of the day, street view only automates what you could do before. It’s no better or worse than walking outside and looking yourself.
As for typical Japanese reaction… I actually looked up this article because one of my co-workers was saying he couldn’t understand why anyone would complain. Of about 8 Japanese co-workers here, the opinion is that StreetView is “cool.”
It should be mentioned that there are those in the US or other places that don’t like things like StreetView either, so this Japanese author is hardly unique in that respect.
At first I thought “Wow–I wonder if his comments represent a general Japanese sentiment about streetview?” The as I read the comments, I realized “Wow–I bet a lot of people don’t like it.” Which made the comment that the United States consists of fragmented groups seem hugely accurate. I’m part of a shard of the U.S.A that finds streetview the best thing since Wonderbread sold their product pre-sliced. I’ve been interviewing around the country, so I check out where I’m going to go, park, walk, all ahead of time… and haven’t been late once despite all the travails of traveling because I know where I’ll be before I get there!
But then again, I’m also part of that population that is completely comfortable with having an international online micro-business entirely based of a pseudonym and a paypal account in addition to my daily life.
What tangled webs we weave, hmm?
Google dream “if all the information and knowledge scattered all over the world on the Web could be organized in an orderly way, so that anybody could access it whenever they needed to, then the world would undergo a major change” is a fraud.
Google manipulates information and knowledge for commercial purposes and has suppressed and censored vital information relating to the history of knowledge of Modern Humans.
I am the seminal author of the word “videography” [try a lookup] and my site is buried on page 15 of Google. My site is on page one of Microsoft Live Search. Lest others think this post is just personal try this lookup including quotes on Google:
“There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening”.
You will find Marshall McLuhan’s name for page after page on this quote. Actually they are the words of Alfred North Whitehead.
I challenge anyone to find the work in which it was originally published based on the Google search results.
Google is homogenizing human knowledge and information into a collection of self serving ad stats. Google seems insensitive to intellectual property and privacy rights and is concerned only that “googol” is the bottom line of their financial statements.
Bob Kiger
Videography Lab
Oceanside, CA
[...] 日本博客，IT专家Osamu Higuchi为此写了一封给谷歌的公开信，指出日本和美国的文化差异——在大街等地方，有许多东西你看到了但应该当作“视而不见”。 [...]
Typical nihonjin-ron whining. I live in one of those back alley neighborhoods in Tokyo for over 10 years now. Since no one ever seems to object to (Japanese) people walking around photographing the houses or unique things in the neighborhood, I dont see how Street View is any different. Its not fair to say that the problem is that the images are on the Web since one can find many similar images browsing through Flikr or on Japanese photography sites. Even if the exact location is easy to find with Street View, many photographs posted to websites already have enough information to identify the area.
As much as I can understand this point of view, I would have to say that the social benefit of this project outweighs the ‘perceived’ social ills. As long as taking these photographs is not illegal Google should continue their project to photograph the world. I just spent 30 minutes ‘walking’ around the streets of Tokyo, getting a point of view that would be impossible any other way. Privacy is important, but it is the responsibility of the citizen to ensure they have created a boundary between the outside world and their inner sanctum.
Natacha says: “I am always intrigued by “culture deniers,” people who claim that cultural differences aren’t real or are so minimal they should be ignored. For the most part, this sentiment comes from a very Western, egalitarian mindset…”
Wow, those are some broad, vague claims, unbacked by proof. Very appropriate for the topic at hand. : )
The issue isn’t the existence of vague, unspecified, aggregate “cultural differences”. The issue is a claim of the existence of an extremely specific one: a special Japanese reaction to Google Streetview. And as with any claim of existence - whether that of leprechauns, alien abductors, a deity, or a specific “cultural difference” - the burden is on the claimant to prove its existence. In this case, the claimant offers no proof. That’s all that some of us are pointing out.
“While there are many constants across the globe (and being uncomfortable about Streetview may well be one of them!) I would also add that people can arrive to the same conclusion through different paths, in this case object to Streetview for different reasons.”
Can people do so? I would certainly agree with you that they could!
But DO they do so in this case? That is, DO “the Japanese” object to Streetview for some special “cultural” reason? We have one guy claiming so, but offering no evidence!
You can make of that what you will, but any critical thinker would do well to say “sorry, I’m not buying that without proof”.
Architecture, sight angles, and privacy
Some differences in privacy can also be explained as differences in sight angles provided by the architecture.
In older cities in the US in places with high density, people may have more privacy because of architecture: the first floor is not at street level. Usually there are steps up to the first floor (think porch steps, townhouses, or brownstone steps), so if you try to look in the windows of the first floor from the street you see mostly ceiling. (In many suburban neighborhoods with no steps but front yards, the yard slopes downward draining toward the street for the same result.) The only buildings where the first floor is at street level usually those designed to be shops, or in very old historic buildings, or built on a steep slope.
Traditional alleyway neighborhood houses in Japan are not designed this way; the genkan area where you take off your shoes is level with the outside or just one or two steps above, and the tatami floor may be about the height of a chair seat above this. So when you look in the window from the street you are still close to eye level with someone seated inside and can see clear through the house if the windows are open. In warmer climes where there may be many sliding doors along a porch facing a tiny yard, so you can see the floor from the street as well.
Maybe the engineers and managers who expanded streetview did not have the problem in their own neighborhoods. Often engineers went to expensive schools and thus most came from richer families who had larger houses set back from the alley, elevated from the street, or lived in upper stories of apartment buildings or over shops.
I am Osamu Higuchi, the author of the original blog article. I just wanted to “Thank you” to Chris Salzberg for translating my article. It seems that this translation triggered many creative discussions involving those who cannot read my original Japanese post, which I couldn’t make happen without your great help.
I also appreciate people who post your comments and opinions here (and there). Actually, it was exactly my intention to let the rest of us notice that there are some Japanese who is not completely happy with Street View, and to ask them if this sounds nuts. So, I am very pleased that all of you are interested in my humble opinion, and gave me (and the rest of the world) your comments on it.
Frankly, I am kind of swamped by the more far-reaching response from everywhere than I imagined for now, and I don’t have enough time to react to each one of your comments. I’m really sorry about that.
But I wanted to clarify one point. Tourists aren’t crowding the jails here, and you can safely take a photograph of Japanese homes if you are not doing it in ordinary manner. :-) That was not what I intended to say in the original post. I did not intended to say that Japan is “special” either, I just wanted to say that Japanese life space is in a “different” scale especially when compared with Americans.
What I wanted to say was that Street View cameras are too close (and too elevated) for typical Japanese allay ways (Thanks to Gc for clarifying it in the comment above), and that I think it is impolite to publish photo shots taken from a viewpoint where you can look down into those semi-open houses without asking to do so.
Again I really appreciate all these discussion. As a devoted IT industry person, I really wish that Google and other “global” companies would carefully respect cultural diversity.
I under stand the issues of going into privet places and taking pictures of peoples living space. But I do want to know how much areas street view can cover in japan and how many city’s can be added. I don’t need an exact number just an estimation of what can be covered in the future. Are there only going to be 3 main areas of japan covered or will there be more. There are some famous landmarks and buildings that I would like to see in street view. Just looking at a photo is ok, but it would be nice to see the land marks and buildings from different views. suchas views in street view.
Thanks to Mr. Osamu Higuchi for his posting. But I think that Japanese space will have to adapt in the new situation, not the situation will be adapted to Japan.
Japan is not the only country in the world with open houses and I think the service provided by Google is too valuable to be cut.
The claims in some other posts that this service makes crime more easy is absurd. Bu such logic we will have to forbid publishing maps, since criminals may use the maps the get better idea how to escape.
see the same case last year in canada:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/technology-media-telco-SP/idUKN2430696920070925
http://www.google.com/search?q=canada+Street+View&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
Mr Higuchi, I appreciate your taking time to clarify the intent of your open letter.
Based on your clarification “I just wanted to say that Japanese life space is in a ‘different’ scale especially when compared with American”, might I suggest a change in the letter’s focus?
This “scale” issue is one of urban population density, not nation per se. The additional privacy issues are going to hold in Beijing, Bangkok, Hong Kong, US inner cities, Mumbai, and so on, just as in Tokyo. Anywhere where Google Streetview gives a good glimpse inside homes’ windows.
The privacy issue is lessened in more spacious, less dense areas - which includes rural Japan, or any location in Japan where homes are set back further from the street.
The suggestion that Google should think more carefully about privacy in population-dense areas is a good one, and I think will find many sympathetic ears. Focusing your letter on that real issue, instead of a rather unsupportable focus on special “cultural” issues in one nation, would make it much more effective in my opinion.
これも同時に訳してほしいですね。
http://takagi-hiromitsu.jp/diary/20080812.html
Traver,
Thank you for your comment. I think you hit a really good point.
Actually, my first thought was exactly as you suggested. I thought it was just a scale and density issue. So, I compared Street View visions of Boston and New York areas with those of my neighborhood, and soon felt something is totally different. In the views of my neighborhood, I saw laundry hang out for drying, girls’ stuffed animals through the window, defenselessly parked Mercedes, kids’ toys scattered on little tiny front yard all in a few yards away from the camera. I felt dense sense of someone living there from the views, and also I felt somewhat uncomfortable and unsafe by seeing the views, which I didn’t felt in the views of urban areas in the States.
Then, I asked some of my friends if they feel the same. Some did, some didn’t.
And finally I came to realize that some of Japanese in urban area have something in common, being “A-okay” to semi-expose living space given that peeping into that is a sort of taboo each other. I thought it’s definitely a cultural issue and it seemed hard to explain this feeling to those who are not familiar with this culture. That is way I tried to explain this feeling step by step.
Sure, the cause of this feeling is the difference of population density, and the reason of this feeling is based in my (our) mind set, which is rooted in our culture, I think.
I must admit that it is my ingrained habit from my previous life as a international product manager at a global software company, to try to explain cultural difference.
(And I must admit that I might have written my original post in a little bit controversial style. But, at the end of the day, it wouldn’t have caught this much attention without it, would it? :-)</