kids

'I found naked pictures of my young daughters on Google Maps.'

Last week, 27-year-old mother of two, Laura Haslam, was in her Lancashire, England, home when a neighbour knocked on her door.

“You need to look on Google maps,” he told her.

“Your kids are naked on the internet.”

Speaking to The Sun, Laura said at first she thought it was a horrible joke. But when she looked online for herself, she was shocked.

Laura was notified of the picture by a neighbour. Image via Facebook.

The street view function of the popular maps site showed her two young daughters - aged just four and three - swimming in a paddling pool outside the family home, completely naked.

Although the young girls' faces had been blurred, their bodies were in full view.

"It's quite scary because I don't know how many people might have seen it," Laura said.

"I don't know how long it's been there for, but it looks like it was taken last summer.

"They had their faces blurred out but it was enough for a paedophile to get a kick out of it."

laura google maps mum pic
The children's bodies have since been blurred out by Google. Image via Google Street View.
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Laura said that she had set up the paddling pool outside their fenced home so her children could play in the sun.

"I certainly won't be doing that again," she said.

She's since reported the image to internet giant Google, and has also contacted local police.

The pictures, although still available online, have since been fully blurred, although Laura's not sure "why they didn't do that in the first place".

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A spokesperson for Google Street View told The Sun that the company "takes a number of steps to protect the privacy" of individuals on the platform.

"We automatically blur sensitive information like faces and vehicle licence plates and in this case although the faces were already blurred, we applied additional blurring to the image when requested," they said.

The business student said she is keeping the original image in case she decides on further legal action.

"I know I would never win taking on the likes of Google and their army of lawyers – but something needs to be done," she said.

"I know they automatically blur faces, but surely they should scan the area for naked bodies – any pervert could have looked at my kids on there.

"Why is it acceptable to show their bodies and not their faces?

"If I was sunbathing topless in the garden, I wouldn't, but let's just say I did, and that image of me got out – I would be devastated."