German privacy regulators met Friday to discuss extending privacy laws to give citizens control over the use of their images and those of their homes in online street-mapping services, IT World reports. The proposal demonstrates "the urgent need for a comprehensive modernization of data protection," said Hamburg Data Protection Commissioner Johannes Caspar. The draft law, which was submitted to parliament in April, would amend the Data Protection Act to make it illegal to publish databases of street images linked to their geographic coordinates without blurring faces and license plates. If adopted, the law would include other provisions as well, including making it illegal to store raw data for more than one month after initial publication.
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