Google Street View Blurs Cow’s Face In UK, Admits To Being ‘Overzealous’

A cow got its five minutes of fame this week but the episode was a bit blurry.

Google Street View is known to blur out faces or number plates to protect privacy but the tech giant took privacy to a whole new level when it obscured the face of a cow in Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

The picture of the cow with its face blurred minding its own business on the banks of the River Cam was snapped by Google’s cameras last August. It was highlighted this week by the Guardian’s U.S. Opinion Editor David Shariatmadari.

His tweet carrying the picture has been retweeted over 10,000 times and the tweet has received over 13,000 likes so far. The image also drew in a lot of cow jokes.

Google Street View’s privacy isn’t absolute when it comes to this cow though. The cow can be viewed in all its glory further down the road but its face was blurred when it came closer to the camera.

When the BBC contacted Google, the California-based company admitted to being a tad “overzealous” with its technology.

“We thought you were pulling the udder one when we herd the moos, but it's clear that our automatic face-blurring technology has been a little overzealous. Of course, we don't begrudge this cow milking its five minutes of fame,” a spokesman for Google said.