[imagesource: Google Maps]
Google Maps Street View is like a museum of time past.
Through a tapestry of panoramic camera images stitched together, it preserves and records digital artefacts of our lives and recreates a digital facsimile of physical spaces in the real world that you can explore online.
It turns out, though, that these 360-degree views of the world that require momentary surveillance have unintended consequences.
Some people are making their way through the digital streets to find images of late loved ones captured by Google’s cameras.
It’s fascinating that while the software includes 87 countries to allow us to digitally travel and explore, we tend to always search for home and what’s familiar.
Vox reports that Google released Street View in 2007, and people have been sharing stories about using the software to go searching for the departed on Google Maps since at least 2013:
Google Maps uses lots and lots of cameras to create the immersive experience that Street View offers.
Google says the digital recreation of the physical world is powered by millions of cameras that capture multiple angles, collected by people “driving, pedalling, sailing, and walking around and capturing imagery.” The company has also moved to allow users to submit their own images to supplement its own Street View.
While helping people remember dead family members isn’t really the intended purpose of Google Maps, a spokesperson told Recode it was “heartwarming” people were using the platform in this way.
Lately, several posts announcing these discoveries have gone viral, including one from UK-based writer Sherri Turner who found an image of her late mother’s house with the light still on:
I look at my mum’s old house on Google maps street view, the house where I grew up. It says ‘Image captured May 2009’. There is a light on in her bedroom. It is still her house, she is still alive, I am still visiting every few months on the train to Bodmin Parkway,
— Sherri Turner (@STurner4077) June 16, 2021
The BBC also reported that Neil Henderson shared an image of his late father at his front door:
“I have literally hundreds of pics of my dad but the Google Street View is quite affecting like he’s still around,” he wrote.
Another account showed an image of his parents holding hands in the street before they died several years ago:
I can go back to 2009 and see my parents walking down the road holding hands. I lost them both 8 & 6 years ago. pic.twitter.com/0YmYROw81k
— Seán (@seanyboyo) June 16, 2021
Bernard Baker also shared an image found of his mum going out for a smoke:
Same here, my mum creeping out for a cigarette. Just over a year ago. pic.twitter.com/M2GoSrCcDd
— Bern (@bernard_baker) June 16, 2021
Here’s another from Dawn:
My lovely lovely Dad who died in 2013 still on google maps ?? pic.twitter.com/qduLLyhqli
— Dawn (@dawn1968) June 17, 2021
As much as Street View and Google Maps raise some serious concerns about privacy, it also lends us a view of time gone by, which is rather comforting for those of us who have lost someone.
