How to Blur Your House on Google Maps Street View
Google Maps Street View is a game changer for digital exploration: wherever Google cameras are, you can check it out for yourself without even leaving your home. Of course, if you don’t like your house appearing on Street View, you don’t have to sit back and let other Internet researchers spy on your home. Whether you’re famous or just value your privacy, Google lets you blur your house in Street View, although it’s not entirely clear how to do it.
Before we continue, a word of warning: the request to blur your house in Street View is permanent . The company won’t reverse this censorship once it passes, so make sure you really want to blur your home before going through with the request. Also, ask Google to blur only your house: if you do the same to someone else’s house, they won’t be able to unblur either.
Step one: Find your home on Google Maps. You can simply enter your address into the search bar and then click on the Street View image that appears at the bottom of the menu on the left. Alternatively, you can click the person icon in the bottom right corner of the window to activate Street View, and then click your part of the street to load your home.
Either way, once your home appears in Street View, click the three dots next to the address, then select Report a Problem . Alternatively, you can click the “Report a problem” button in the lower right corner of the Street View window. This will open the Google Maps “Report Inappropriate Street View” form for your specific address. If for some reason the address or image is not your home, restart the process to avoid blurring someone else’s home.
Here you can adjust the exact amount of blur you want to add to your image. You can zoom in and out using the + and – buttons to control the size of the window to blur, or drag the map around the map to adjust the window’s position.
Below you will need to select which element of the photo you want to blur. You can select a person, car/license plate, or “other object”, but in this case, select “My Home” . You can skip the “Report Image Quality” section. Next, enter your email address, since Google requires you to attach it to your request, and then fill out the reCAPTCHA to prove you’re not a robot. After all, we don’t want ChatGPT to blur all our homes.
It is impossible to say exactly how long this process will take or whether Google will contact you at the email address you provided with more information. But if everything works as intended, Google will eventually hide your home from Street View.