How To: Blur Your House on Google
If you are anything like me, you are probably very aware of your online privacy. You are aware of how ISPs operate, you understand what happens when you visit a website. You are familiar with the concept of proxies and VPNs.
Perhaps even with your friend and family you have taken on the mantle of "Captain Privacy." The person who is constantly preaching online safety and privacy. It is a heavy burden but someone has to carry it ;)
Myself and others even go as far as to tell our friends and family not to post pictures of our kids online.
Children are unable to fathom the fact that when you put your picture online it is there forever.
As a father and a security professional I take protecting my family online seriously.
When I discovered that one could go as far as to blur your own house on Google street view I was actually pretty happy.
It took some time for my request to be approved (I'm guessing Google gets a lot of requests), but once it was approved I had my desired results.
Follow the steps below to blur your home on Google Maps
1. Navigate to Google Maps and enter you address
2. Enter street view mode
3. While in street view mode click on "Report a problem"
4. You will directed to a separate window. Centre the red square on your house. Select "My home" from the Request Blurring radio buttons. Provide a legitimate reason for blurring. Enter your email and hit submit. Done!
Conclusion:
Blurring your house may seem excessive and maybe even uptight. For me personally I feel like I can't do enough to protect myself and my loved ones privacy. Having a blog and a YouTube channel and posting my content on LinkedIn it may appear that I don't care at all about privacy.
On that topic I believe the contrary. Privacy is something of value that should be protected. With my social avenues for distributing content I am in control about how that content is initially distributed. The goal is that people will like the content and share it, but I was in control the whole time.
One of my kids came home from school one day and said they did an in-class activity where they showed everyone's homes on street view to the entire class. My child, slightly irritated, said "my house was the only one people couldn't see!"
I surprised my kid with this response "...that's good."
This lead to a very good conversation about what does online privacy mean? Should my personal assets be freely visible online? Should random people that kind-of know you have your address? Should your entire class know what your house looks like?
I initially felt bad for my child, but only because they missed out on an experience. In the long run I believe I taught them something that is immeasurably more valuable.
Continued:
At the time of writing I work as a professional instructor with a primary focus on cyber-security. I literally see 100s of different people a year(in a teacher/student relationship). Some of my students think I am great, and others really really don't. I would be foolish to think that I wasn't being looked up online by folks. Keeping my house blurred is just one thing I can do to protect my privacy and the safety of my loved ones.
Thanks for reading!!
You can also check out my video on this same content on YouTube!!
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