Anyone Can See Your Front Door on Google Maps. Here’s How to Blur It

If a Street View car has driven down your street, anyone with a browser can stand outside your house. They can turn to face the front door, zoom in on the windows and see what is parked in the drive. Google says its Street View cars have captured more than 10 million miles around the world, and the only things it blurs automatically are faces and licence plates.

A whole house is blurred only when someone asks. Google and Apple both take these requests, but Google’s comes with a proof-of-address check, and neither company promises a timeline. Here is how to blur your house on Google Maps and Apple Maps, what a blur leaves visible, and the trade-offs to weigh first, because a Google blur cannot be undone.

• Street View. Panoramas taken from public roads. In the Google Maps app, tap Layers, then Street View: blue lines show where coverage exists. Coverage is uneven, so a rural lane may have none at all.
• Older captures. See more dates opens imagery of the same spot from earlier visits, where it exists. Google warns that what you see can be anywhere from a few months to a few years old.
• Immersive View. In the app, the Aerial button switches from Street View to Immersive View. Google says Immersive View is not made from Street View imagery.
• The satellite view. Your roof, garden and driveway, photographed from satellites and aircraft rather than from the street.
• Other people’s 360 photos. Contributors can publish their own 360 photos, called Photo Spheres, to Google Maps. Google credits its own imagery to “Street View” or “Google Maps”; a contributor’s photo carries their account name.

Check all five first. It shows what a blur would actually change, and it finds the Street View image the request needs.

1. Step 1Find your houseOpen Google Maps on a computer and search for your address.
2. Step 2Open Street ViewSelect the photo with the Street View icon, or click Pegman at the bottom right and drag it onto the blue line in front of your house.
3. Step 3Face the houseDrag the view until your home is in frame. Google asks you to open the Street View image you want blurred, so pick the view that shows the house most clearly.
4. Step 4Click Report a problemGoogle’s blur instructions put Report a problem at the bottom right of the image. Its general Street View help also lists it under More, so check there too.
5. Step 5Choose My homeTick the box that certifies you have the authority to make the request, click Choose file to upload your proof of address, and enter the address to be blurred. If your home has no formal street address, tick the box that says so.
6. Step 6SubmitComplete the rest of the form and send it. Add an email address if you want news: Google says it may use it to ask for more information or to update you on the report.

On a phone

In the Google Maps app on Android or iPhone, search for your address, or touch and hold the map to drop a pin. Tap the thumbnail with the Street View icon and swipe until your house is in view. Then tap More, then Report a problem, and carry on from My home as above. Google’s blur steps for Android and iOS match the ones for a computer.

Two rules sit above the paperwork. Only the homeowner or a tenant is eligible to ask for a house blur. People without a formal street address can still apply, through the same verification. Google says every uploaded document is permanently deleted from all its systems after 60 days.

Google describes its automatic blurring as designed to catch identifiable faces and plates, and its policy allows for misses: if your face or plate needs more blurring, use the same tool.

Imagery that Google did not take follows different rules. Google blurs faces and plates automatically in 360 video that contributors upload, but not in their other uploads, such as Photo Spheres, where blurring is up to the photographer. If you find your face, licence plate or home in someone else’s contribution, use Report a problem on that image to ask for it to be removed.

Permanent cuts both ways. The blur stays after you move out, including for whoever lives there next, which is worth a thought if you plan to sell or let the house.

A blur also changes how Google uses the picture. Google says it trains and prompts its generative AI models, including Gemini, Nano Banana and Veo, with Street View imagery. Once a blur is applied, that image is left out of generative AI prompting from then on. AI-generated images that third parties have already created or published are not affected.

Streets also get photographed again: in places Google has covered for many years, older and newer imagery sit side by side. Google and Apple both publish where their camera vehicles are heading next, so it is worth looking at your street again after a car has been through.

• Satellite and aerial views. These come from cameras on satellites and aircraft, not from Street View cars, and the blur process is for Street View images. Your roof, garden and driveway stay visible from above, in Google Maps and in Google Earth.
• Immersive View. Google says places blurred in Street View are not blurred in Immersive View, because it is not made from Street View imagery. Blurs do carry over into the animation that switches between the two.
• Other capture dates. Google’s blur instructions and policy do not say whether a blur carries over to captures from other dates. Once yours appears, open See more dates and report any older image that still shows the house.
• Photos other people upload. A Photo Sphere of your street belongs to its photographer, and Google does not blur non-video uploads automatically. Report each one separately.
• Other maps. Apple photographs streets for Look Around with its own vehicles, so a Google blur changes nothing there. It needs its own request, covered next.
• AI images already made. Google says a new blur does not affect AI-generated imagery that third parties have already created or published.
• Everything around the house. The road markings, signs, poles and neighbouring houses stay sharp, and those are the country and region clues a geolocator reads first.

1. Step 1Open a reportOn an iPhone, open Maps, tap your picture or initials next to the search field, tap Reports, then Report a New Issue. On a Mac, choose Maps > Report an Issue. On the web, use Apple Maps at maps.apple.com.
2. Step 2Describe the imagery problemChoose the option that fits and follow the onscreen instructions. Apple’s privacy notice says an imagery report can include the direction and angle of your Look Around view, so have your house on screen when you start.
3. Step 3Check the account shownA request to blur Look Around imagery is stored with your Apple Account, which Maps shows before you submit. A request made on the web collects your email address. Apple may email you to clarify the request or to say it has been fixed, and may keep report data linked to you for up to two years.
4. Step 4Or email AppleApple’s image collection page gives MapsImageCollection@apple.com for questions about its blurring and for requests to blur a face, a licence plate or your own house.

Apple’s pages give no timeline and say nothing about whether a Look Around blur is permanent. Its privacy notice for street surveys adds two details. Apple keeps collected imagery in unblurred form for 12 months from the date of collection. Individuals can ask for access to, or deletion of, unblurred imagery if they give the location and the time it was likely taken, ideally within a 15-minute window.

If your own house is blurred and you never asked, the request came from someone else: a previous resident, perhaps, or a report about the image. Either way, Google calls the blur permanent, so there is nothing to reverse.

Blurring removes the easiest way to look at your home without going there. It does not make the house hard to find: the street is still on the map, and it can be recognised from the same road markings, poles and signs that GeoGuessr players learn to read.

• It is visible. A smudge in an otherwise sharp street shows that someone asked for it.
• It is permanent. Nobody can reverse it later, including you.
• It is partial. It covers Street View, not the other views listed above.
• It takes paperwork. You send Google a redacted document with your address on it, which Google says it deletes after 60 days.
• It will not stop someone who knows the address. They can simply go there.

The photos you post yourself deserve the same care. A picture taken in your garden can give the address away through its location metadata whether or not Street View shows the house, and it can be removed before you share. Photos of the inside from an old sale can often be taken off Zillow and Redfin by the owner too.