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Comment by ulnarkressty | Hacker News Reader

> taboo on taking photo

Do Germans complain/rage every time they see a security camera?

Wasn't Germany the original country that forced google maps to censor all houses unless they opt-IN? And faces, and driving plates.

I think they are quite privacy conscious, as a country.

And quite averse/backwater (choose your version) on using debit/credit cards. Which is mindblowing from my Easter European perspective. I didn't use cash in a decade.

Unfortunately that's much less the case since COVID. Not looking forward to have more and more placed that only take panopticon-payments.

That has pretty much changed now. I rarely use cash in Berlin. About 2-3 years already...

Berlin is very different from the rest of Germany.

But not how you think, in this instance. I think Berlin has more places of questionable legality which require cash for presumably tax avoidance reasons.

That reminds me when I was in Schleswig (lovely town) on my way to Denmark. And I wanted to pay for 1 day stay, lady that had (a really nice) apartment said that unfortunately her terminal doesn't accept international debit/credit cards (wild! and probably not true) and I had to hunt for an ATM machine to get some cash. It was 13 years ago, I remember I was so surprised that the west is so far back behind us.

germany had bank transfers as the norm when the US still fiddled around with paper cheques.

Google Streetview isn't opt-in, it's opt-out. But it was used so much that Google simply gave up for a while.

Blurring faces (and I assume license plates) was a thing before they started serving imagery for Germany

They don't see security cameras because there are very, very few in Germany and the few that exist are in train stations, or private areas like INSIDE a business, or INSIDE a private estate, pointing inwards since they're seldom allowed to film outwards

And there is a big warning if there is a security camera around. And they get destroyed pretty often.

Source: living in Berlin.

Security cameras are illegal by default in Germany. Having one is a crime punishable by jail time, if you aren't careful to follow the rules.

Yes. Datapoint: the underground garage of the complex where I used to live experienced a large number of thefts (including my motorbike), and in 6 years we never managed to install security cameras because you need unanimity for this, and there's always someone who is concerned about their privacy.

See how StreetView looks like there (or looked), they have trouble being photographed.

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