Google Maps and Google Earth: Aerial photos of private property must be deleted

Aerial photographs of Germany: You can also see areas that are not visible from the road

A family man from Frankfurt am Main has enforced in court that Google must delete satellite images of his property from his offers Google Maps and Google Earth. “No one has to accept that aerial photographs of his inhabited property are publicly distributed worldwide without his consent, at least if areas of property are depicted that are deprived of public attention,” said the ruling, which is not yet legally binding. (Reference: 2-03 O 388/25)

The background is the complaint of a family man who owns a house in Frankfurt am Main. He had already successfully enforced in the past that pictures of his house on Google Street View and Apple Look Around are made unrecognizable. In the current proceedings, he now opposed the publication of pictures of his property on Google Earth and Google Maps.

In the so-called satellite view on Google Maps, entire swathes of land can be viewed from above, zoom in on real estate and sometimes retrieve three-dimensional views of buildings. You can usually see pictures taken from aircraft, Google uses material from various commercial providers. These recordings can also be accessed via Google Earth.

For the normal Street View view, which Google creates using its own camera cars, there is an established complaint process. First, you call your address in Google Maps and call the street view. Then you have to call the link “Report problem”.

In the browser, this can be found at the bottom of the image on the right, in the app in a menu at the top of the image. From there you get to a complaint form, where you can request the unrecognization of your own property. The deletion of an aerial or satellite image is not yet provided in the form.

If you want to know whether Google is currently sending camera cars through its own neighborhood, you can see the current plans on the project page of Google. For this you have to select your own state and federal state and find out in which areas new recordings are created. However, these are only very general data.

The aerial photographs usually also show the rear area of the property, which is not visible to passers-by from the road. The press chamber of the district court criticized in particular that Google secretly obtained his image material by “spying”, it said. The aerial photographs made from a high altitude would not be announced beforehand and remained unnoticed by those affected. It is therefore impossible to cover individual areas of the property before an overflight.

The court made a fundamental balance of interests. Google can invoke the freedom of information for users of the Internet. With its services, Google serves the “adventure spirit” of people who want to explore the world, even if only digitally. Google wants to contribute to a democratization of knowledge and a transparent information society, the decision says.

This purpose is legitimate, but not sufficient to trump the interests of the landowner. So you can draw on the basis of the recordings far-reaching conclusions about the lives of the inhabitants or even prepare with the data material break-ins, decided the press chamber of the district court. The decision can be challenged before the Oberlandesgericht Frankfurt.