The wealthy enclave of North Oaks, Minnesota got itself removed from Google Maps Street View 2008 and has stayed invisible to the service since then, thanks to the fact that the entire city of 5,272 residents, a former gated community, is private property—the property lines end at the middle of the street, so there is no public property per se, and driving the streets is considered trespassing.
Chris Parr decided to get North Oaks onto Street View anyway. Taking advantage of the fact that property rights don’t extend into the airspace above the property, he got a drone licence, collected some aerial imagery, and uploaded said imagery to Street View. Where it lasted for approximately three whole days before it was taken down, because it’s not like Chris was going to succeed where Google failed. As the 404 Media report notes: “Parr’s experiment and documentary raises questions, of course, about who gets to have privacy in America. A wealthy enclave has set up the legal and surveillance infrastructure to be able to prevent being mapped. The rest of us, meanwhile, are subject to all sorts of surveillance by our neighbors and law enforcement.” (See, for example, the cameras at every entry road enforcing North Oaks’ privacy.)
To be clear, this is specifically about Street View (and Apple’s Look Around, same deal). North Oaks is on the map on every platform. It’s not blurred in satellite imagery. It’s not a naval base or a nuclear facility, just an immensely privileged neighbourhood that wants to keep even the virtual riff-raff away.
