How to hide your home image on Google Maps

You can protect your privacy and that of your family by asking Google to hide your home in Street View.

If you’re a regular Google Maps user, you’re probably familiar with Street View - a first-person tool that provides 360-degree photos of streets and buildings to get a sense of what’s going on in the area you’re searching for. These images are taken by Google’s famous camera cars.

Street View also has a lot of practical uses - allowing you to see the outside of a restaurant or destination before you visit, or to identify a location that’s a little out of sight. If you’re driving to an unfamiliar location, you can check to see if you’re in the right place with Street View when you get there.

However, there are concerns that Google Street View’s public images could be used by bad guys to spy on or observe the outside of your home without having to go there, just using a phone or computer with internet access.

If you are not comfortable with your home being so easily spied on, you can ask Google to obscure your home by doing the following:

  1. Go to maps.google.com, type in your home address and press enter, then click on the image containing your home.

  2. Next, click Report a Problem at the bottom right of the screen, the text is very small but definitely there.

  3. Next, select the area you want to obscure within the red-black border. You can adjust the frame and zoom in and out as you like.

  4. Next, fill in the information fields, providing detailed information about what you want to obscure. Google warns that once the image is obscured, it cannot be restored. Then, fill in your email and wait for Google’s response and approval decision.

That is in the case of Street View images owned by Google. If the image is owned by a user, you can also report and fill in the request in the Other section for Google to consider and handle. Not only 360 degree photos but also regular photos can be reported.

See details: How to hide your home image on Google Maps

Translations

Vietnamese: Cách che hình ảnh nhà bạn trên Google Maps