Story By: Ernest Bio Bogore, Sub-Editor: Marija Stojkoska, Agency: Newsflash
A police officer has been caught out showing a Google Maps car his middle fingers after the image was spotted on the Street View function of the app by eagle-eyed internet users.
The image was then shared on Twitter by the ‘Best of Google Maps’ account which specialises in publishing unusual screenshots from Google Maps.
The tweet shows the image of a police van driving on Rue Voltaire in the city of Roubaix in northern France with the front passenger giving a double-fingered ‘salute’ to the Google Car camera.
The image was revealed on 12th November this year, and the picture was taken in August 2019, according to French newspaper 20 Minutes.
In the meantime, the Google Car has driven down the same street again, this time without the police vehicle, and the image on Google Maps has been updated.
However, the photo of the indelicate civil servant is still visible by going back in time thanks to Google’s tool that allows netizens to view previous versions of street view images.
Luckily for Google, the Global Security Law does not provide for retroactive sanctions for the authors of police photos, reports La Voix Du Nord.
The face of the civil servant as well as the number plate of the vehicle was blurred.
France’s Global Security Law aims to penalise with one year’s imprisonment and a fine of EUR 45,000 (GBP 40,248) anyone who diffuses a “facial image or any other element of identification” of members of the police force when it “damages” their “physical or psychological integrity”, in order to protect the police force. It was voted on 24th November this year and has been the subject of several controversies.
The French government have now announced that they are going to rewrite the law after four police officers were filmed repeatedly beating a black music producer at his studio in Paris, prompting widespread outrage and protests.
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