Google has managed to land itself in trouble again with the controversial Street View service that it offers. This time it is the UK Government that is unhappy with the search engine giant after it was realised that Google had taken photos of secret government organisations and posted them online.

The company has now been ordered to remove the images in question as they breach the Official Secrets Act that prohibits ‘loitering and photographing’ of secret government buildings.

According to one UK newspaper, Street View had uploaded detailed images of several different British Military research buildings that included the Special Air Services (SAS), Mi5 Headquarters and Special Boat Services.

What makes this even more interesting is that all of these top secret buildings in the UK have all got warning signs in their entrances that prohibit photography or imaging of the area. Yet Google still chose to take photographs of these buildings, ignoring our UK laws despite the fact that the UK has an impressive 95 per cent share in the search engine market.

But more important is the security issue that Street View has just raised to the UK government as officials are now concerned that these images could be used by terrorists and anti-social groups to plot attacks on these significant government buildings.

Google made a statement on the issue to say ‘Google Street View is only made up of images from public roads and so it is expected that buildings anyone can see walking down the street may appear.’ Which is all very well, but Google should remember that it is not above the law.

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