Google Maps has a lot of data on roads across the globe, and that data comes from a variety of sources. In an effort to improve data in certain areas, Google Maps is now using footage from dash cams installed in vehicles.
Back in 2019, Google Maps added the ability to see speed limits along the roads of over 40 countries. The feature remains broadly available and, to this day, is still incredibly accurate in some locations. In an effort to further improve this data and keep things up to date, Google Maps is now using the footage from dash cams.
Google published a support page regarding this new effort, explaining that it “licenses imagery in the form of short, silent video clips from vehicle dash cams” and uses that footage to update road data, including speed limit signs.
The page explains:
Google licenses imagery in the form of short, silent video clips from vehicle dash cams from trusted third-party companies. These companies use dash cams in their own everyday operations. For example, they may use them to collect imagery for accident investigations, or they may sell such devices to consumers. With contributor consent, these companies share imagery with trusted partners like Google to help update Google Maps, or as a first step in making road improvements.
The folks at Android Police first spotted the page, and notes that this effort seems to be limited to the UK only. The page says that dash cam footage for Google Maps is only pulled from partners in Geopost Vision and Nextbase, and on linked pages, the two companies only reference the UK.
Google says that data is pulled from footage with the help of AI and then deleted, and everything is fully opt-in for drivers, as well as not being published. Footage is also only requested from areas where map updates are needed.
To identify map-related details such as new speed limit signs, Google uses a combination of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and help from our operations team. We extract the info and update Google Maps before deleting the imagery.
The effort seems to be as privacy-conscious as it could be, while also seemingly being a big benefit to Google Maps on the whole. There’s no word on whether or not Google intends to expand this effort to other regions.
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