Google photographs naked man in garden - compensation

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• Google must pay compensation to a man in Argentina.
• He was photographed naked in his front garden in 2017.
• The man will receive around 10,000 francs.

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An Argentinian man who was unintentionally photographed naked in his front garden by Google Street View has successfully sued the US company for damages. According to media reports on Thursday, an Argentinian appeals court ruled that Google must pay 16 million pesos (around 10,000 francs) for violating the man's personal rights.

Google had violated the man's privacy in a "blatant" manner, it said.

The picture was taken in 2017 in the small Argentinian town of Bragado. The man was naked in his front garden, which is protected by a two-metre-high wall. However, the image from the Google Street View camera was taken from an angle that allowed a view of the front of the house and therefore also of the man's naked back. The house number and street name were also visible.

The photo was distributed on a local news channel and in online media. The man, a police officer, then faced ridicule from his colleagues and neighbors, as he had argued in the lawsuit.

Another court had dismissed his claim last year on the grounds that the man himself was at fault as he was "walking around his garden in an inappropriate manner". Google had explained that the wall around the garden was not high enough.

However, the injured party had been photographed "not in a public place, but within the boundaries of his house", the Court of Appeal ruled. The two-meter-high fence was higher than the average person. There was "no doubt that it was an arbitrary intrusion into the life of another person".

Two media outlets that had also been accused of distributing the photo were acquitted. The judges argued that by distributing the photo, they had helped to highlight Google's "misconduct".

Street View is a function of the Google Maps service. The service shows 360-degree views and is fed, among other things, with images photographed by a camera mounted on a car.