Like a trigger-happy tourist, Google has shot almost every street in five US cities and added the still images to what might be the world's biggest holiday album. But if Google ever starts shooting the streets of Europe, it may run into legal trouble.

Our data protection regime lets us take holiday snaps, even of strangers, provided we're doing so for private purposes. But if we're taking snaps for commercial use, in which individuals are identifiable, there is no such exemption. The subjects must be notified, and that is hard for Google to do. Even a loudspeaker on top of the camera cars ("Hi, it's Google here, say 'cheese' everybody!") might not suffice.

The law sets extra requirements for so-called sensitive personal data: it demands explicit consent, not just notification. That means when taking pictures of someone leaving a church or sexual health clinic – which could reveal a religious belief or an illness – camera cars might need to pull over and start picking up signatures.

The need for individuals to be identifiable is an important one. From what I've seen, the resolution is too low for people to be easily identifiable.

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It's not just those who are identifiable and caught in the act that can give Google a tough time. Europeans could ask Google to ensure that no picture of us appears in Google Maps in the first place.

The nature of this rule varies across Europe, but in the UK we have a right to prevent the display of an image that would cause substantial distress. All we have to do is send an email to Google asking that it does not display a picture of us: "Dear Google, I think your camera caught me in Hyde Park this lunch time canoodling with my wife's best friend. Please make sure I can't be seen in Google Maps because this may cause me substantial distress. I've attached a pic of what I look like."

If Google refuses or ignores you, you can go to the Information Commissioner and ask him to enforce the right. If there's damage and distress, you can sue.

Street View is rather like CCTV, and the Information Commissioner has published a CCTV Code of Practice. The guidance is surely impossible for Google to follow: "Signs should be placed so that the public are aware that they are entering a zone which is covered by surveillance equipment … [These signs] should be clearly visible and legible to members of the public".

The guidance adds that "individuals sunbathing in their back gardens may have a greater expectation of privacy than individuals mowing the lawn of their front garden". Perhaps the Information Commissioner will take a pragmatic view and say that footage of someone walking down a street is acceptable, but footage of someone entering rehab is not. Maybe a mashup of Google Search and Google Maps could locate abortion clinics etc. and delete the footage.

Then there are our human rights.

One evening in August 1995, a 42-year-old man named Geoffrey Peck attempted suicide by cutting his wrists with a kitchen knife while on Brentwood High Street in Essex. CCTV cameras caught the action; the council's CCTV operator alerted the police and the police intervened. Peck lived, but still images from the footage were sold by the local council to the media. Peck took his complaint as far as the European Court of Human Rights and won.

The court said that the disclosure of the footage was a "disproportionate and unjustified interference" with Peck's private life, in violation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The court considered it significant that "[Peck's] actions were seen to an extent which far exceeded any exposure to a passer-by or to security observation and to a degree surpassing that which [Peck] could possibly have foreseen." Peck won damages of £7,000.

There is a qualification here: the Human Rights Act generally applies only to public authorities – and Google is not a public authority. But it does not escape completely. Courts are public authorities, and if someone sues Google for breaching the Data Protection Act in similar circumstances, courts will seek to protect a person's human rights in deciding the case. So human rights enter the case by a back door.

You can see Brentwood High Street in Google Maps, but not with Street View. Perhaps you never will.

The author is a lawyer at Pinsent Masons and the editor of technology law site Out-Law.com, where a version of this article first appeared

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