Google Street View, a feature that allows you to view 360-degree panoramic street images is now finally available in India, after being banned by the government over 6 years ago.

This has been made possible by the new National Geospatial Policy, 2021, which lets local companies collect this kind of data and license it to others, making it also the first country where Street View has been enabled primarily by partners.

Earlier, the government had cited security concerns raised by Indian agencies as the reason for banning Google Street View. Street View is currently live in over 100 countries already.

“This is the first time that Google Street View is being completely brought to life by local partners,” Miriam Daniel, vice-president, maps experiences, told ET in an exclusive interaction. “After extensive on-ground work, Street View will be available on Google Maps with fresh imagery of ten cities in India. They (the partners) have covered 150,000 kilometers in India. We plan to expand to 50 cities soon.”

“Starting today, Street View will be available on Google Maps with fresh imagery intensity in India that is covering 150,000 kilometers (93,205 miles) of roads that’s actually been ingested into Google Maps,” She said at the event. “So I’m really thrilled about how people will start using Street View and in India and see how we have suddenly changed everyday lives.”

Daniel explained that the launch has been made possible by the clarity the new Geospatial Policy brought in. “First of all, it requires that local entities be the ones that collect all the data. So the partners are the ones that are collecting and owning the data. They have to collect it at a certain level of fidelity depending on the type of camera. Even the camera configurations are done by our partners,” she said.

The policy, Daniel added, even cites areas where data can be collected data and those where they can’t like government, defence and military areas. “So, our partners know exactly where they can go and collect [data], which is a majority of India.”

Google is now looking at taking this partnership model to other parts of the world.

Street View will also help improve Google Maps as it will be able to parse data on road conditions etc which is often not clear in satellite imagery. “We are able to apply our technologies that have been in development for more than a decade and use AI and ML to parse the data like on information about road conditions and addresses and put it back on the map for users,” explained Daniel.

Image source: Reuters