"We shall not, we shall not be viewed!"

Residents of Broughton, Buckinghamshire, stopped a car from taking photos of their village for Google Street View, claiming it is an "invasion of privacy".

Broughton residents have been suffering from a string of burglaries and feared that burglars could use the images taken by Google to continue their crimes. As a result, the locals formed a human chain to stop the car that was taking the images. Police were on their way as the drivers of the car relented.

Local man Paul Jacobs was the first to make the stand-off. He said: "I was upstairs when I spotted the camera car driving down the lane. My immediate reaction was anger; how dare anyone take a photograph of my home without my consent? I ran outside to flag the car down and told the driver he was not only invading our privacy but also facilitating crime."

Jacobs then ran around the village knocking on doors and asking the fellow villages to help him. They eventually blocked the road and prevented the car to pass. Jacobs went onto say: "This is an affluent area. We've already had three burglaries locally in the past six weeks. If our houses are plastered all over Google it's an invitation for more criminals to strike. I was determined to make a stand, so I called the police."

Google claim that it was not breaking the law. A spokesman said: "We provide an easy way to request removal of imagery. Most requests are processed within hours." Amongst the images removed include a man leaving a sex shop.

Google Street View is one of the search engine's latest features, which allows users to see 360-degree views of cities. This has been viewed by many as an invasion of privacy, with pressure group Privacy International taking legal action against Google in a hope of shutting it down.

Story from The Times