Tuesday 20, June
Google street view to take new photos in Berlin for the first time in 15 years
If you do not want your house or apartment to be recorded, it is possible to file an objection
Does anyone remember what Berlin was like around June 2008? Back then, presidential candidate Barack Obama was about to give a speech below the Victory Column, newspaper articles were worrying that a Döner might soon cost more than €3 and finding an apartment for €600 cold inside the ring took less time than queueing to order a Meisterburger at that cool new burger place that had opened up in a former toilet under Schlesisches Tor.
All that has changed – but anyone wanting to visit that prelapsarian idyll can do so just by heading to Google Maps and opening up Street View. Google has not updated its pictures of Berlin for 15 years. Now, however, it is doing so. Starting on June 22, those 360-degree camera-mounted cars will be on the road once again in Berlin and Brandenburg, collecting new images of the city. This being Germany, however, people are worried about data protection – and if you do not want your house or apartment to be recorded, it is possible to file an objection and get your property pixellated out. Anyone who got their house removed last time, however, will need to file again.
On the other hand, if you want to go down for the next 15 years as that one weirdo wearing a full Egyptian mummy costume trying to climb onto a balcony on Kottbusser Damm, now is your chance for that, too.
