Google Street View Helps Find Kidnapped Child

from the well-who-woulda-thunk? dept

You may remember that a couple months ago an advocacy group was trying to whip up a storm about Google's Street View service. The claim alleged that child predators would use Street View to find where children live and then kidnap them. Well, it turns out that Street View did assist with a kidnapping.

Only, not as the worriers predicted.

Instead, a smart cop was able to use Street View to help relocate a kidnapped child. In fact, in conjunction with the GPS data for the child's phone, provided by the cellular provider, the officer was able to use Street View to remotely find what he thought may be a motel in Virginia. Furthering Googling confirmed Street View and local police were able to find the child. Obviously, stories like this will be far and few between -- but so will ones where bad guys use technology in an evil way. That's the reality: technology can be good or bad, it depends on the user. Luckily, in this case, we had a clever cop using technology for the best.

Filed Under: google maps, kidnapped children, street view